Global Climate Change: US Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Status, Trends, and Projections

Publication Date: August 2003

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Environment; International relations

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Abstract:

This report reviews U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases in the contexts both of domestic policy and of international obligations and proposals. On October 15, 1992, the United States ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force on March 21, 1994. This committed the United States to “national policies” to limit “its anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases,” with a voluntary goal of returning “emissions of carbon dioxide [CO2] and other greenhouse gases [methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)]” at the “end of the decade” to “their 1990 levels.”

Subsequently, in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, the United States participated in negotiations that ended with agreement on further reductions that could become legally binding. The United States signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, but President Clinton did not send it to the Senate for advice and consent. President Bush has said that he rejects the Protocol, and former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman told reporters that the Administration would not be pursuing the UNFCCC commitment either. Instead, President Bush has proposed to shift the nation’s climate change program from a goal of reducing emissions per se to a goal of reducing energy intensity—the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of economic productivity. Under the proposal, the intensity, which has been declining for a number of years, would decline 18% between 2002 and 2012, as opposed to a 14% projected “business as usual” decline.

Meanwhile, the UNFCCC “end of the decade” deadline has passed and U.S. greenhouse gas emissions continue on an upward trend, thoughwith dips in 1991 and in 2001, attributed mostly to economic slowdowns. Based on historical data, 2001 emissions were about 13% in excess of the UNFCCC goal. Overall, from 1990 to 2001, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (weighted by global warming potential) have increased an average of about 1.1% per year. Projections suggest that U.S. emissions will continue to rise for at least the next decade. Reversing the upward trend in greenhouse gas emissions would represent an extraordinary technical and political challenge to U.S. energy and environmental policy.

This report will be updated as necessary.