State Department Predicting Increase for U.S. Emissions Through 2020

At a time when it is widely believed that planet-warming emissions must quickly get on a downward trajectory, the U.S. State Department projects the nation will see a four percent leap in heat-trapping gases in the period between 2005 and 2020.

In its fifth climate action report to the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the State Department details the substantial rise in emissions that occurred between 1990 and 2007, and projects a greenhouse gas future that many environmentalists are calling "unacceptable."

"The main thing this [report] indicates is that there is clearly a disconnect between what they are doing and what the science tells us what we need to do urgently," said Rose Braz, the climate campaign coordinator at the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tuscon, Az.-based conservation group.

"We would hoped to have seen something saying what the science requires — which is that we need to get CO2 down to 350 parts per million — and a plan about how we are going to do that using existing regulatory programs."

The rise in emissions by 2020 will be largely due to the increase in an often forgotten class of "super" greenhouse gases, known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, the report says. These gases, used as refrigerants in appliances and elsewhere as replacements for the ozone-depleting substances like chlorofluorocarbons, can be more than 1,000 times as potent as carbon dioxide. 

HFCs to More Than Double by 2020

The report's projection of a four percent increase incorporates carbon-reducing policies that were already in place as of March 31, 2009, including last year's stimulus projects under the American Clean Energy and Security Act, as well as the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

Under the State Department's scenario, the U.S. will see a rise from 7,109 teragrams of CO2-equivalents emitted in 2005 to 7,416 teragrams in 2020.

Notably, the country's gross domestic product is predicted to rise 40 percent in that period.

Carbon dioxide emissions, though, will increase only 1.5 percent. Other major greenhouse gases — methane, nitrous oxide and perfluorocarbon emissions — will rise more rapidly, at eight percent, five percent and four percent, respectively.

Although climate action proponents would like to see those numbers drop dramatically, their biggest concern is with HFCs, which are slated to more than double from 2005 and 2020.

For Samuel LaBudde, a director at the non-governmental Environmental Investigation Agency, the report may finally shine a national spotlight on the importance of reducing super greenhouse gases.

"I think it is fair to say that there is probably going to be an increase in the perception that HFCs need to be dealt with," he said.  "If people had a better sense of the magnitude and gravity of consequences associated with global warming that if we were really aware we would see a 4 percent rise by 2020 as completely unacceptable."

Policy Changes Could Help

The report did note that additional measures not yet in place — like the American Clean Energy and Security Act that passed the U.S. House last June, or the recently released Senate bill, the American Power Act — could result in dramatic changes to these projections.

Braz said the State Deparment ignored the fact that these existing policy measures could be used to shrink the nation's carbon footprint.