{"id":35534,"date":"2013-10-29T15:38:32","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T15:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/?p=35534"},"modified":"2013-10-29T15:38:32","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T15:38:32","slug":"article_28645","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_28645\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes, CO2 Emissions Are Down, but They Have Much Further to Go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">For related articles and more information, please visit OCA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/transitions\/index.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Organic Transitions page<\/a> and our <a href=\"http:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/environment.cfm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Environment and Climate Resource Center page<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\nLast week, environmentalists got a rare bit of good news: U.S. CO2 emissions dropped 3.8 percent in 2012, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eia.gov\/environment\/emissions\/carbon\/\">according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration<\/a>. That brings emissions to their <a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/news\/party-like-its-1994-americas-co2-emissions-hit-18-year-low\/\">lowest level since 1994<\/a>, and represents the fifth drop in seven years. And unlike some previous years, the drop was not the silver lining to a shrinking economy: The economy grew by 2.8 percent in 2012. That means carbon intensity, which is CO2 emissions per dollar of gross domestic product, dropped by an impressive 6.5 percent.<\/p>\n<p>But before you get too comfortable, it&#8217;s worth looking at those numbers in the context of what we need to achieve to avert catastrophic climate change. There are three reasons to stay worried, and vigilant:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana; font-size: 10pt;\">\u2022 <\/span>The U.S. has to keep up this performance year after year, and it will get harder as emissions go down.\u00a0 <br \/><span style=\"font-family: verdana; font-size: 10pt;\">\u2022 <\/span>The whole world has to do the same.\u00a0 <br \/><span style=\"font-family: verdana; font-size: 10pt;\">\u2022 <\/span>CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas.<\/p>\n<p>To keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and thereby prevent the worst of climate change, we need to keep atmospheric CO2 concentrations around 450 parts per million (and that&#8217;s a <a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/article\/2009-06-22-350-vs-450-heart-matter\/\">generous estimate<\/a>). As the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.climatecommunication.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/presidentialaction.pdf\">noted<\/a> in 2011, &#8220;In order to stabilize CO2 concentrations at about 450 ppm by 2050, global emissions would have to decline by about 60% by 2050. Industrialized countries&#8217; greenhouse gas emissions would have to decline by about 80% by 2050.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, environmentalists got a rare bit of good news: U.S. CO2 emissions dropped 3.8 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That brings emissions to their lowest level since 1994, and represents the fifth&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1008,1031],"tags":[50,3,15],"organicbytes":[],"countries":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Yes, CO2 Emissions Are Down, but They Have Much Further to Go - Organic Consumers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/organicconsumers.org\/article_28645\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Yes, CO2 Emissions Are Down, but They Have Much Further to Go - Organic Consumers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week, environmentalists got a rare bit of good news: U.S. CO2 emissions dropped 3.8 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 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