The Trump administration has adopted an ostrich-like attitude toward climate change.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must publish reports on the country's annual sources of climate pollution from April 15 to April 15. It didn't happen this year. However, the recently completed reports have been made public due to requirements for the Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Environmental Defense Fund.
This latest U.S. greenhouse gas inventory report provides detailed details about U.S. emissions in 2023. It is not clear why the government withheld the report, which has been completed, so its suppression has no budgetary interest. But the suppression report is consistent with the Trump administration’s general attack on climate action.
In his first day executive order, the president announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and declared a “national energy emergency” mainly to expand fossil fuel production while largely halting low-carbon wind development. His administration then began to remove the terms “climate crisis” and “climate science” from government websites, dismantle climate and weather research, fire climate scientists from federal agencies, and even try to cancel the next national climate assessment report.
The EPA report itself provides some good news for a modest reduction in climate pollution in the United States between 2023 and 2023. But if the government and Congress successfully implement a proposed rollback of proposed pollution regulations and clean energy policies, this may not continue until a trend needs to meet climate goals.
U.S. coal consumption and climate pollution decline in 2023
EPA report shows that in 2023, climate pollution in the United States fell by 2.3%. That is 147 million tons or MMT of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas reduction.
2023 is the first year that President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, and the Democratic Party’s signing of the climate law has signed hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce climate pollution.
The continued long-term decline in U.S. coal consumption has caused most of the reduction in emissions in 2023. In fact, a 18% drop in coal pollution accounted for a 164 mMT decrease in emissions, which is more than the overall national emissions that year. The higher carbon emissions of natural gas offset some of the decline in coal, increasing by 1%, or reducing by 18 mmt.
Over time, climate pollution in the U.S. industrial sector has also declined moderately, in part due to increased efficiency and the shift to clean technology and the use of increasingly low-carbon electricity. Emissions from most other sectors of the economy remain relatively stagnant. Transportation has become the country's largest source of climate pollution, as electric vehicles have not yet created too many dents in the number of polluted cars on U.S. roads.
The United States has released a total of 6,197 MMT of climate pollution in 2023. The country's natural carbon sink, like trees that pull carbon out of the air through a photosynthesis process, eliminates about 940 mmt.
Combining these sources and sinks together, the U.S. net emissions were 5,257 MMT in 2023, about 20% lower than the annual highest in 2005. According to the Paris Agreement, the United States promises to reduce its climate pollution by at least 50-52%, below the 2005 level.
What happened to our forests and agriculture
About one-third of the land in the United States is covered with forests, and these trees absorb a lot of U.S. carbon pollution. The country's natural carbon sink absorbs more than 15% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. Almost all of this work is done by trees in forests, cities and planting new trees to expand the forest’s trees.
In recent years, the amount of carbon absorbed by the country's natural carbon sink has remained relatively stable, although it is threatened by aging forests and wildfires with higher climates. The think tank resource for the future 2023 report concluded that avoiding a substantial reduction in the amount of carbon naturally absorbed by U.S. forests will require a lot of ongoing efforts to plant more trees and expand the country’s forests.
In 2023, agricultural activities have caused more than 10% of greenhouse gas pollution in the United States. Nearly half of these emissions are related to nitrous oxide in “soil management.” The term describes agricultural practices designed to increase crop yields, mainly the application of synthetic fertilizers made from chemicals rather than natural sources. Nitrous oxide is a long-lived greenhouse gas that lasts for more than a century in the atmosphere and is 265 times more effective than carbon dioxide when trapping heat. It is the third largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, second only to carbon dioxide and methane, accounting for 6% of the country's total climate pollution. About three-quarters of the country's nitrous oxide emissions are derived from the application of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.
Most of our remaining agricultural emissions are related to animal farming. The specific source is “intestinal fermentation”, which refers to methane released by ruminant livestock like cattle, mainly managed in feces and fertilizers. Overall, greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. agriculture have remained relatively stable over the past few decades.
What happened to methane
Carbon dioxide is responsible for nearly five-fifths of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2023, but methane accounts for another 11%. Methane is an effective greenhouse gas, especially for a short period of time, but over time it breaks down into carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere. As a result, experts often find that reducing methane emissions is a way to significantly reduce climate change in the short term.
Animal agriculture is about one-third of U.S. methane emissions in 2023, mainly from cattle burp, with leaks from the gas system causing another 22%, and landfills are the third largest source at 17%. The EPA reported that U.S. methane emissions were 23% lower than in 1990 due to the installation of a landfill gas collection system and reducing the distribution, transportation and storage of natural gas.
The new regulations of the EPA passed in the Inflation Reduction Act, combined with the new regulations of the EPA, accelerate the downward trend of methane leakage. But Congress voted in February to pass a ban on the EPA methane rule and proposed a freeze of methane fees in the so-called “a large beautiful” budget settlement.
The United States is making slow, steady progress in curbing climate pollution
Over the past decade, climate pollution in the United States has dropped by 1-1.5% per year on average, mainly due to the replacement of coal with cheaper, cleaner electricity. By 2030, the continuation of this trend will leave the Paris commitment of the United States. The U.S. emissions are faster than the long-term average in 2023, but preliminary estimates suggest they don't have much in 2024.
This is largely due to the increasing demand for power in the U.S. in 2024 – a trend that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future due to the expansion of data centers, artificial intelligence, air conditioning use in hotter climates, and electrification of vehicles and buildings. If Congress abolishes most clean energy incentives proposed by the House of Representatives, fewer new low-carbon forces will be deployed to meet growing demand. This situation will translate into higher emissions and home energy costs, coupled with a decline in domestic manufacturing and economic activity, according to Princeton’s energy system experts, energy innovation and modeling by Rhino Group.
The country's 2023 climate pollution reduction is good news, and the Trump administration doesn't want to say it, but it's a story that promises to become sour in the future as administration officials retreat from climate regulations, with Congress aiming to reduce the economic motivation to promote the rapid deployment of clean energy resources in 2023.
Repost our articles for free under the Creative Commons license, online or in print.
