Early Estimates Suggest EU Energy CO2 Emissions Increased In 2015

Early estimates from the European Union suggest that CO2 emissions from energy use increased in 2015, compared to 2014.

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, published early estimates (PDF) for CO2 emissions from European Union (EU) energy use for 2015, and found that CO2 emissions seem to have increased compared with the year previous. Specifically, Eurostat estimates that in 2015, CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in 2015 increased by 0.7% over 2014 numbers.

Change in CO2 emissions, 2015/2014 (estimated)

As can be seen in the graph above, the largest falls in CO2 emissions in the EU were in Malta and Estonia, while the highest increases occurred in Slovakia and Portugal. Specifically, the highest increases recorded were Slovakia (+9.5%), Portugal (+8.6%), and Hungary (+6.7%), followed by Belgium (+4.7%) and Bulgaria (+4.6%), while decreases were registered in eight of the EU Member States, including Malta (-26.9%), Estonia (-16.0%), Denmark (-9.9%), Finland (-7.4%), and Greece (-5.0%).

Eurostat’s figures challenge those released earlier this year by UK-based think tank Sandbag, which reported European Union power emissions fell by 0.5%, following Sandbag’s estimated 7.5% fall to the European Union’s energy sector in 2014.