Numbers of gas emissions in Europe’s source sectors such as energy industries and industrial processes have fallen, showing a significant progress in the bloc’s air pollution and climate change efforts since 1990.
The transport sector, including aviation, was the only industry to have increased its emissions, adding 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2020 compared with 1990, according to research conducted by Eurostat.
The EU has successfully reduced 1.5 billion tonnes of gas emissions over the last two decades in the remaining sectors.
The energy industries, which mainly produce electricity, heat, and derived fuels, witnessed the biggest reduction, cutting CO2 emissions by 657 million tonnes. The manufacturing industry was the second sector to record the biggest reduction, decreasing the amount of CO2 produced by 322 million tonnes.
In the third place were households, commerce, institutions and others, which have decreased 215 million tonnes of CO2. Compared to 1990, these three sectors have seen a drop of 46%, 44%, and 29% in 2020, respectively.
“Fugitive emissions from fuels show the largest relative change in 2020 compared with 1990 at -59 %, but the share in the overall total is much less (1.8% of the total GHG emissions),” Eurostat explains.
The aviation organizations have been urging the Member states and governments across the globe to come to an agreement on reducing carbon levels, citing targets of having no carbon emissions by the year 2050.
The Members of the European Parliament have also been urging the aviation industry to accelerate the use of sustainable materials and biofuels, which would help reduce carbon levels.
According to the EU’s Fit for 55 campaign, which aims at cutting carbon levels by 55% by 2030, used cooking oil, hydrogen, or synthetic fuel should become the most often used aviation fuel materials by 2050.
“Aviation is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize. Today we showed how to do this and sent a strong and ambitious signal to the citizens of Europe. We heard you when you called for climate action, and we are working as much as we can to achieve a truly green Europe,” EP rapporteur Søren Gade said.
