U.S. greenhouse gas output rises 3.2 pct in 2010
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E-mail Xinhua, April 17, 2012
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions rose 3.2 percent in 2010 from the previous year amid economic growth and higher electricity demand from high summer temperatures, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Monday in a report.
Total emissions of the six main greenhouse gases in 2010 were equivalent to 6,822 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the EPA said. These gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. The report indicates that overall emissions have grown by over 10 percent from 1990 to 2010.
The Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990- 2010 is the latest annual report that the United States has submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change.
The inventory tracks annual greenhouse gas emissions at the national level and presents historical emissions from 1990 to 2010. The inventory also calculates carbon dioxide emissions that are removed from the atmosphere by "sinks," for example, through the uptake of carbon by forests, vegetation and soils.
The biggest emitting year in the United States in that 20-year period was 2007, a year before the global financial crisis hit, when the U.S. emitted 7.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases.
