Texas, California top US states for CO2 emissions from energy industry
By CASSANDRA SWEET
Texas led US states in carbon dioxide emissions from energy, followed by California and Pennsylvania, according to the latest data.
Nearly half of the Lone Star State's 663 million metric tons of CO2 emissions came from petroleum fuels in 2010, according to a Energy Information Administration report. Coal and natural gas use and operations in the state contributed roughly a quarter each of the rest.
California produced about 370 million metric tons of CO2 in 2010, about two-thirds of it from petroleum fuels and about a third from natural gas, according to the report released last Wednesday.
Nearly half of Pennsylvania's 257 million metric tons of CO2 came from coal, while about a third came from petroleum fuels and about a fifth came from natural gas.
The daily average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million for the first time, at a benchmark US monitoring site in Hawaii, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.
Climate scientists said the data were a sign that manmade greenhouse gases were growing, rather than declining, which they predicted could boost global warming and lead to more frequent extreme-weather events, such as droughts, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels.
CO2 emissions from energy dropped in most US states between 2000 and 2010, although emissions rose in Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Arizona and other states, according to the EIA.
Dow Jones Newswires
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