Surprise: CO2 emissions no longer keep pace with GDP trends. Ergo: industrial production and consumption, which are usually responsible for a large part of air pollution, are no more responsible than climate change, which for example in Italy in the second quarter of this year forced renewable sources to produce less energy , with a consequent increase in thermal production and therefore emissions.
In detail, Ispra (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) found that in our country from April to June greenhouse gas emissions recorded an increase over the previous year, equal to 0,8%, against a decrease in GDP equal to -0,1%, again compared with the same period of the previous year.
So what is technically called a occurred decoupling (decoupling) between the trend of emissions and the trend of the economic index, a circumstance that is not too comforting because a decrease in GDP is usually associated with an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
The increase estimated by Ispra is mainly due to the massive growth in consumption of fuels for the production of electric energy (+4,4%), mainly due to reduction of hydroelectric and wind energy production, while on the other hand there is a decrease in consumption – and therefore emissions – of fuels in the transport sector (-0,8%) and of natural gas in the domestic heating sector (-3%).
Waste management also has reduced emissions (-3,9%), thanks to the development of selection and treatment systems but the specific weight of this sector is less important than the others. On the other hand, according to Ispra data, the level of emissions produced by the agricultural sector is stable.
