According to a copyrighted ABC News story , White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is citing a study from the International Energy Agency that shows that European Union’s carbon dioxide emmissions from fossil fuel increased at more than two times the rate of these emissions from the U.S. between 2000 and 2004. In the U.S. (which didn’t sign the Kyoto Protocol) carbon emissions increased by 1.7 percent in that time period, while the EU saw a 5 percent increase.
I think Snow may have been referring to this report, CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion 1971-2004. I don’t have the €120 on me that the IEA wants in exchange for getting a copy of the entire report, but I suspect the White House was able to take it out of petty cash. While focusing on the years 2000-2004 is a bit self-serving, and it’s questionable how much of a direct impact the Bush administration has had on these numbers (other than less heavy-breathing in the White House compared to the previous president), it is an interesting comparison to see the results of a somewhat-free economy versus the carbon-cap system in place in Europe, and could bear further research into the mechanisms related to this growth.
One must wonder if the high fuel taxes in Europe dulled the impact of price increases for petroleum, and thus Europeans didn’t see as much of an incentive to save fuel as we did.