News Releases from Headquarters›Air and Radiation (OAR)
Latest Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks Shows Continued Progress
WASHINGTON — The 2018 edition of EPA’s comprehensive annual report on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) highlights continued reductions in emissions – about two percent below 2015 levels and 11 percent below 2005 levels. Between 2005 and 2016, GHG emissions in the U.S. electric power sector have dropped by roughly 25 percent.
“This report confirms the President’s critics are wrong again: one-size-fits-all regulations like the Clean Power Plan or misguided international agreements like the Paris Accord are not the solution. The U.S. has reduced greenhouse gas emissions more than any country on Earth over the last decade,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “American ingenuity and technological breakthroughs, not top-down government mandates, have made the U.S. the world leader in achieving energy dominance while reducing emissions – one of the great environmental successes of our time.”
Background
EPA’s annual report, the “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2016,” provides comprehensive look at U.S. emissions and removals by source, economic sector, and GHG, going back to 1990.
The gases covered by this inventory include: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride. The inventory also calculates carbon dioxide emissions that are removed from the atmosphere by “sinks,” e.g., through the uptake of carbon and storage in forests, vegetation, and soils.
This annual report is prepared by EPA in collaboration with numerous experts from other federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Agriculture, state government authorities, research and academic institutions, and industry associations.
More information is available at: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks.