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9/12/2014 Which industries and activities emit the most carbon? | Environment | The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/28/industries-sectors-carbon-emissions

Which industries and activities emit the

most carbon?This question and answer is part of the Guardian's ultimate climate change FAQ

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Electricity generation and transmission is one of industrial sectors with the biggest carbon footprint. Photograph: Dan

Kitwood/Getty Images

Thursday 28 April 2011 11.10 BST

"Carbon" is shorthandfor greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2, methane, nitrousoxide and F-gases. These gases are released by many different types of activity not just th

burning of fossil fuels, but also farming,deforestation and some industrial processes.

Global emissions can be allocated to human activities in various ways. One of the mostgranular analyses is this one from the World Resources Institute (WRI), which breaks downtotal global emissions from 2005 into the following headline sectors:

Energy Electricity & heat (24.9%) Industry (14.7%) Transportation (14.3%) Other fuel combustion (8.6%) Fugitive emissions (4%)Agriculture(13.8%)Land use change(12.2%)Industrial processes(4.3%)Waste(3.2%)

http://www.wri.org/chart/world-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2005http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/nov/05/ultimate-climate-change-faqhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the-ultimate-climate-change-faqhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/nov/05/ultimate-climate-change-faqhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the-ultimate-climate-change-faqhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/04/man-made-greenhouse-gaseshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the-ultimate-climate-change-faqhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/04/man-made-greenhouse-gaseshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/11/forests-trees-climatehttp://www.wri.org/chart/world-greenhouse-gas-emissions-2005http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/03/carbon

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9/12/2014 Which industries and activities emit the most carbon? | Environment | The Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/28/industries-sectors-carbon-emissions

These sectors are then assigned to various end uses, giving the following results (nicelyvisualised here):

Road transport (10.5%)Air transport (excluding additional warming impacts) (1.7% )Other transport (2.5%)Fuel and power for residential buildings (10.2%)

Fuel and power for commercial buildings (6.3%)Unallocated fuel combustion (3.8%)Iron and steel production (4%)Aluminium and non-ferrous metals production (1.2%)Machinery production (1%)Pulp, paper and printing (1.1%)Food and tobacco industries (1.0%)Chemicals production (4.1%)Cement production (5.0%)Other industry (7.0%)

Transmission and distribution losses (2.2%)Coal mining (1.3%)Oil and gas production (6.4%)Deforestation (11.3%)Reforestation (-0.4%)Harvest and land management (1.3%)Agricultural energy use (1.4%)Agricultural soils (5.2%)Livestock and manure (5.4%)Rice cultivation (1.5%)Other cultivation (1.7%)Landfill of waste (1.7%)Wastewater and other waste (1.5%)

It should be stressed that there is a fair degree of uncertainty about the precise contributionof some activities, especially those which include biological processes such as land usechange and agriculture. Indeed, the total contribution from deforestation is much lower inthe data above than it was in the equivalent figures from 2000, due to a change in theunderlying methodology as described in the WRI's accompanying paper (pdf).

The other point to note is that emissions levels are permanently changing. Total globalemissions are significantly higher now than they were in 2005, and the ratios betweensectors will also have changed. But global datasets take a long time to compile, hence thereis usually a multi-year lag before reliable figures are published.

The numbers provided above are broadly consistent with the 2004 data published in thelatest UN IPCC report.

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