Coal and EU’s GHG emissions

Watching the Tides - Marchel Alexandrovich

In a recent note we highlighted that, led by India and the US, global GHG emissions rose by around 1% in the first eight months of 2024, and made the point that as net zero drifts further out of reach, economies must prepare for the likelihood of more frequent and extreme climate related events. Climate change risk, to us, is an entirely different concept to ESG.      

The failure to tackle emissions is not uniform, however. In the EU, CO2 emissions continue to decline, an improvement which is being led by the most carbon-intensive sectors and economies. Domestically generated emissions across the EU have fallen by around a quarter since 2011, with the pace of decline accelerating over the past couple of years.

Quarterly GHG emissions: resident basis (industry, services, households)

Source: Eurostat and Saltmarsh Economics

For balance, it must be recognised that the picture does not look quite so positive once the emissions embedded in each country’s imports are taken into account – some…