Despite Paris Deal, Carbon Dioxide Emissions will Grow, but Fracking will Cut the Rate of Growth

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H. Sterling Burnett

Managing Editor, Environment & Climate News at The Heartland Institute

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. is managing editor of Environment & Climate News and a research fellow for environment and energy policy at The Heartland Institute. Burnett worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most recently as a senior fellow in charge of NCPA’s environmental policy program. He has held various positions in professional and public policy organizations, including serving as a member of the Environment and Natural Resources Task Force in the Texas Comptroller’s e-Texas commission.

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Shale oil rig at dawn.

A new report by British Petroleum (BP) shows, despite continuing gains in energy efficiency and forced expansions of renewable power sources, economic growth in China, India, and other developing countries is swamping carbon dioxide reductions in Western countries and is expected to do so for decades into the future. According to BP’s report, “Despite the slowdown in emissions growth, the level of carbon emissions continues to grow, increasing by 20% between 2014 and 2035.” BP projects increasing emissions from fast-growing nations will overwhelm any emissions cuts made by the United States and other developed countries.

The rate of global carbon dioxide emissions growth could be reduced substantially, if only more countries would embrace fracking.

A new study by Oren Cass, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, finds despite massive subsidies and state mandates, renewable energy sources remain a small part of America’s energy supply. Investment in the industry has been flat for almost five years domestically and globally. Even as GDP grew 7.3 percent since 2007, Cass notes, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fell 9.7 percent from their 2007 peak of 6,001 megatons of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) to 5,417 MtCO2 in 2015.

Improvements in the efficiency of electricity use, the amount of electricity used per dollar of GDP, accounted for 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions reductions. The fracking revolution, resulting in a shift in electricity production from coal to natural gas, accounted for 19 percent of the decline. By contrast, increased solar power production is responsible for just 1 percent of the decline in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. For every ton of carbon dioxide cut by solar power’s substitution for coal, the switch to natural gas has removed 13 tons of carbon dioxide. Globally, the amount of carbon dioxide reduced by solar power’s expansion in the United States equaled less than four hours of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2013.

Get that world leaders, frack for gas, reduce your carbon dioxide emissions — now that’s green energy.