Skip to main content

Climate Change: Trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Emissions Intensity in the United States and Other High-Emitting Nations

GAO-04-146R Published: Oct 28, 2003. Publicly Released: Nov 07, 2003.
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

In February 2002, the President reaffirmed a previous U.S. commitment to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases at a level designed to prevent dangerous human interference with the earth's climate. At the same time, he announced a Global Climate Change Initiative to reduce the rate of increase of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States between 2002 and 2012. Specifically, he established the goal of reducing the "emissions intensity" of the U.S. economy by 18 percent, a reduction 4 percentage points greater than would be expected absent any new policy. Congress asked us to describe how U.S. emissions and emissions intensity compare to the world's other highest emitters. Specifically, this report focuses on (1) how greenhouse gas emissions and the emissions intensity of the United States and the nine nations with the next-highest emissions changed from 1980 to 2000, (2) how such emissions and the emissions intensities of the same nations are expected to change between 2001 and 2025, and (3) how meeting the administration's goal of reducing emissions intensity by 18 percent would affect cumulative U.S. emissions between 2002 and 2012.

Full Report

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Air pollution controlComparative analysisForeign governmentsProjectionsCarbon dioxideGreenhouse gassesEmissionsClimate changeGreenhouse gas emissionsGreenhouse gases