Industrial emissions of greenhouse gases

Abstract

The global industrial sector accounts for approximately 47% of energy related carbon dioxide emissions, and significant quantities of additional greenhouse gases (GHGs) are released as industrial process gases. CO 2 development trajectories of emissions relative to GDP growth are found to vary considerably among countries. A survey of individual subsectors finds wide discrepancies among countries in releases per unit of production. GHG industrial emissions are currently lower than they were in the mid-1970s in most industrialized countries, and while absolute levels have grown in newly industrializing (developing) countries, the rate of growth has slowed and CO 2 per unit of GDP has dropped in most cases. A number of technical approaches that account for past reductions and future options are identified. For mature industrial economies opportunities for introducing new, lower emitting technologies occur on time scales of a decade or two during natural capital stock turnover, but few policies exist to assure their adoption. Making low emission technologies available to developing countries as they expand their industrial sectors, and to Central and Eastern European economies as they restructure and reindustrialize is essential if industrial GHG emissions are to be curtailed.