Recently released 2011 data indicate that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the twenty seven countries in the European Union (EU) decreased  by 3.3 % while EU Gross Domestic Product grew by 1.6 percent, according to official data compiled by the European Environment Agency (EEA).  The EU's total GHG emissions in 2011 were 18.4 percent below 1990 levels.  The EU's 2020 goal for GHG emissions is 20 percent below 1990 emission levels, so the EU, as a whole, is on track to meet its goal.  Even  emissions  from the fifteen more developed EU nation's decreased by 14.9 percent from 1990 levels, lower than the designated emission reduction goal of 8 percent from 1990 to 2012 listed in the Kyoto Protocol for the EU.  These decreases apparently were largely due to a milder winter in 2011 compared to 2010, which led to a lower demand for heating.

This short-term trend toward decreasing GHG emissions in EU is similar to those reported in the United States (although the U.S. 2011 emissions were 8 percent higher than the goal assigned to the U.S. by the nonbinding Kyoto Protocol) and the decreases are attributed, in part, to switching from coal to natural gas as a fuel.  See Sustainable-Counsel Blog post, The Trend Is Toward Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions In the U.S. (April 16, 2013).

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