I have always understood that the hypothesis that human greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming only considered emissions from fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) and from fossil limestones (cement production). According to me, methane emissions from ruminants is part of a close loop. CO2 from the atmosphere is absorbed by grass, grass is eaten by ruminants. The carbon in the grass is used for the growth of the animals and part is emitted as methane by burping. This methane is changed to CO2 in 6 to 12 years and again absorbed by the grass. Part of the carbon is also sequestered by ruminants in their durable animal products, such as leather, wool and bone carvings. Therefore domestic ruminants, such as cattle and sheep are carbon sinks.
I would appreciate your (and others) comments.
Kind regards
Gerrit van der Lingen, Christchurch, New Zealand

Many thanks, and very interesting!

The per capita figures I am showing are total population, including immigration.

The report that Joe shared that started this conversation reported results country by country, so that is why I have also.

But if you want the totals, the are easily calculated from the EIA data:

1. US emissions increased by 19% 1990-2005
2. EU-15 emissions increased by 8% 1990-2005

(remember that Kyoto accounting does not include all emissions)

3. EU 15 minus UK and Germany saw emissions increase by 24% 1990-2005

4. UK and Germany saw their emissions decrease by 10% 1990-2005

So it is fair to conclude that the primary difference between the US and EU-15 over the period 1990-2005 was not Kyoto, or even climate policies, but German reunification and UK domestic energy policies.

This is even more apparent if we use 1997 as the base year (i.e., after the largest German and UK effects occurred). From 1997-2005 both the US and EU-15 saw total emissions increase by 7.0%.

No, I did not misread the graph. If Denmark were the dominant country population-wise, it would mean that the EU-15 did very well in reducing emissions (because Denmark did – see the graph) and we would “be very happy with the reduced emissions from the EU-15.”

Joe-

The discussion is about the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, not about any and all emissions reductions. Implementation of Kyoto should be judged according to the goals of Kyoto. If you think that there will be different results by using a different start/finish date, then by all means show them. I don’t think the analysis changes one bit, but I’m happy to hear why you think it would. If you don’t want to show this info, I can put up the data with a 1990 baseline on our blog this afternoon after class.

If you think that Margaret Thatcher’s energy policies or German reunification are related to efforts to meet the objectives of Kyoto or even remotely related to climate policy, then we are indeed far apart in our views.

Also – on your subject change — If you want to call the EU population growth rate that is half of that of the US “almost the same” fine. I’m not interested in another excursion into semantics with you, been there, done that!

I don’t know either, but when I went looking for the answer, I found this webpage:

http://community.newvalues.net/2007/09/denmarks_co2_emissions_up_161.html

It says that Denmark’s emissions increased by an astounding 16.1 percent from 2005 to 2006, based on burning an even more astounding 50 percent more coal in 2006 than in 2005.

So the best-performing country on that graph would take a huge hit, if the spreadsheet went to 2006, instead of 2005.

Joe wanted to factor out the effects of population growth. The best way to do that is to look at per capita emissions as I have done here.

Also, you are reading the graph incorrectly. Denmark shows the greatest per capita decline.