By Diana Mandia and Augustin Turpin
(Reuters) – Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union fell by more than 5% in the second quarter of 2023, with the biggest decline recorded in electricity and gas supply, statistics agency Eurostat said on Wednesday.
The EU’s emissions between April to June amounted to 821 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents, down 5.3% from a year earlier, while the bloc’s economy remained almost stable, registering a year-on-year variation of 0.05% in the period.
Electricity and gas supply, the sector whose emissions fell the most (-22%), contributed 15.5% to the total figure, while agriculture accounted for 14.3% and transportation and storage for 12.8%.
The EU has among the most ambitious climate change policies of any major economy, having passed laws to deliver its 2030 target to cut net emissions by 55% from 1990 levels, which analysts say is the minimum needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
To reach its carbon neutrality objective, the bloc earlier this year increased its goal of renewable energy share to 42.5% by 2030 from a previous target of 32%.
The drive to use more renewables, such as wind and solar, drew momentum after the Russian invasion of Ukraine led the EU to end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, so primarily through locally produced, low-carbon energy.
However, there has been political and industry resistance to green goals.
Manufacturing was the main contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the second quarter, accounting for 23.5% of the total, followed by households with 17.9%.
The largest reductions in greenhouse gases, responsible for warming the planet, were registered in Bulgaria (-23.7%), Estonia (-23.1%) and the Netherlands (-10.3%), Eurostat said.
Of the 21 EU members that decreased their year-on-year emissions in the second quarter, ten countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain) managed to do so while growing their GDP, Eurostat added.
(Reporting by Diana Mandiá and Augustin Turpin in Gdansk; editing by Barbara Lewis)
