Aitana Vargas

2005 was not a good year for the world’s 41 most industrialized countries, according to the latest estimates by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The study, which comes three days after the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the IV Report on global warming, speaks by itself. Greenhouse emissions by developed nations have risen to an all-time high.

Within Europe, while some countries (France, Britain, Finland and Sweden) are on the right path to meet their 2012 emission targets as agreed under the Kyoto Protocol, others have yet to take the steps to meet their commitments.

For instance, not only is Spain not excluded from the list, but it’s actually the highest European country on it. Spain faces one of the greatest challenges given that its emissions have been increasing in recent years. Compared to the 1990 benchmark, Spain’s emissions in 2005 were 53.5% higher, well above the 15% increase allowed by the Kyoto agreement. Although such figures were already known, the UN has just made them official.

The Spanish Minister of Environment, Cristina Narbona, believes that it is too soon to make a proper assessment of the situation. And although the 2005 numbers will not have any consequences since the Kyoto Protocol only takes into account the average emissions in the 2008-2012 period, they are yet indicative of how well national policies aimed at tackling climate change, if any, are working.

Outside Europe, 2005 was a bad year for both the United States and Australia. The two industrialized Kyoto holdouts emitted 16.3 % and 25.6 % more than in 1990 respectively.

The UNFCCC has partly blamed the increase in emissions on the continued growth of both industrialized and developing countries.

Source (s):

El Mundo
National greenhouse gas inventory data for the period 1990-2005

Picture Credit (s):
Público