Global carbon emissions flat for third year running, despite GDP growth

[Ebowed]

The problem with substituting coal for gas-powered electricity is that this comes with enormous increases in methane emissions.  Methane emissions are already very high due to agriculture and waste disposal practices (landfills).  Fracking has quickly come to cause about a third of all methane emissions just in the last few years as it replaces coal as a major source of electricity.  Methane emissions were already problematic before this, but now they warrant even more scrutiny as their warming potential is greater than CO2.

It is also not good news that carbon emissions from non-electricity generation sectors are not decreasing.  While it is indisputably good that CO2 emissions seem to be flatlining, they still need to decrease substantially if we are going to realistically avoid substantial changes to climate.  It is essential that any climate strategy includes targeted decreases in consumption in order to achieve our emissions goals.  Hopefully this begins to enter the consciousness as more progress on reducing CO2 emissions in the electricity generation sectors is made.