By P Gosselin on April 4, 2018
It turns out that the country that got attacked the most for backing out of the Paris Accord happens to be the one that reduced CO2 emissions the most last year, writes Die Welt’s energy journalist, Daniel Wetzel, who wrote:
Now the results are in: No country in the world saved more CO2 in 2017 than the USA. And it is because of the eco-effect.”
Top CO2 saver among a record emissions year
Wetzel cited the latest results of the International Energy Agency IEA, which also stated that global CO2 emissions reached a new all-time record high after having stagnated the three previous years. In 2017, global CO2 emissions rose a robust 2.1 percent – “due to strong economic growth,” Wetzel writes.
On USA’s impressive reductions, Wetzel called it “bizarre”:
Foremost a development emerged that was quite bizarre: Of all countries, the USA under President Donald Trump was the world’s most successful climate protector.”
“Green champions” fail to deliver
According to the IEA, the USA reduced CO2 emissions by 23 million metric tonnes, emitting 4.81 billion tonnes.
Meanwhile some of the world’s most vocal proponents of CO2 emissions reductions and supporters of the Paris Accord failed to reduce CO2 emissions at all. The European Union, which fancies itself a champion of green energies and moral beacon, actually saw its emissions rise by 46 million tonnes!
Also eco-pompous Germany, whose car industry cheated the world, has not reduced emissions some 9 years running:
:
Germany CO2 equivalent emissions, millions of metric tons. Source UBA.
It was the third year in a row that the USA reduced CO2 emissions, a result that Wetzel called “surprising”.
The reduction, according to Die Welt’s Daniel Wetzel, was attributed to the USA’s 17% energy supplied by renewable sources and that 20% of the electric power was produced by nuclear plants.
Trump’s great solar project
The news of Trump being the 2017’s best climate-saver did not go down well among climate activists. Germany’s alarmist site Klimaretter insisted that Trump had little to do with the development. Klimaretter claimed the good result from the USA was “due to the strong expansion in renewable energies. This occurred not because of Trump, but rather despite the President’s politics.”
Currently Trump is proposing the installation of solar panels on the wall along the border to Mexico, which would make it one of the largest solar power facilities in the country.