US carbon emissions are down 12% since 2005.
According to many an editorial the reason is simple. The fracking boom has driven out coal.
But that isn’t what the data says. The data says that oil emissions are down more than electricity emissions. That natural gas is at best responsible for half of emissions cuts. And that electricity generation tell us only half the story.
If we want to really understand what happened to US emissions we also need to ask why oil emissions have tanked.
A closer look at the data shows that natural gas was actually responsible for less than half of the total emissions cut in the US since 2005. Most of these cuts have occurred in the power sector, as well as some in industry.
In any other period in the last 50 years an oil price spike like we have witnessed since 2003 would dominate energy discussion:
The red line depicting oil prices in this chart alone makes a good claim for the existence of a ‘third oil crisis’.
Between 1978 and 1983 US oil consumption declined by 19%, due to a combination of the ‘second oil crisis’, and the early eighties recession.
In the subsequent recessions of 1990 and 2001, oil consumption was down 4% and 1% respectively. But in both these recessions oil prices remained relatively low.
From 2005 to 2012 US oil consumption declined by more than 11%. Oil consumption plateaued in 2004, well before the recession started in late 2007. And although this recent recession was a very big one oil prices should not be overlooked.
Between 2003 and 2008 the price of oil tripled. While the recession clearly played a key role in the crash of oil consumption during 2008 and 2009, the failure of oil demand to rebound since then shows very clearly that oil prices matter.
cleantechnica
