Green transition: Global CO2 emissions continue to rise but EU bucks global trend

The Joint Research Centre of the Commission published today a new study on “Fossil CO₂ emissions for all world countries”, reaffirming that the EU has succeeded in decoupling economic growth from climate changing emissions. Fossil CO₂ emissions of EU Member States and the UK dropped in 2019, while globally, the increase of CO₂ emissions continued in 2019, although at a slightly slower pace. Since the beginning of the 21st century, global greenhouse gas emissions have grown steadily. However, EU Member States and the UK bucked the trend, with their CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels combustion and processes dropping by 3.8% in 2019, compared to the previous year. This means the EU and the UK’s fossil CO₂ emissions were 25 % below 1990 levels – the largest reduction among the top emitting economic areas around the world. Since 1990, there has also been a decreasing trend in CO₂ emissions per capita and per intensity of monetary output across Europe. These reductions have been achieved thanks to a mix of mitigation policies aimed at decarbonising the energy supply, the industrial and the building sectors, and will be continued with renewed effort under the umbrella of the European Green Deal. These are the results of the latest updates of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), a unique tool developed by the JRC in support of policy impact evaluation and climate negotiations, which provides a benchmark against which national and global estimates can be compared. More information is available in the JRC press release.