It’s time for a come-to-Earth meeting – and time to get America’s energy policy back together.
After three years of decline, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions rose sharply last year, despite a record number of coal-fired power plants closing or converting to different fuels.
Based on preliminary power generation, natural gas and oil consumption data, the Rhodium Group, a leading economic, climate, social and political research group, estimates that U.S. carbon emissions increased by 3.4 percent in 2018.
The spike marks the second largest annual gain in more than two decades, surpassed only by 2010 when the economy bounced back from the Great Recession, according to Rhodium.
And, no, we can’t blame Trump. We can blame – you guessed it – climate change itself and our own growth.