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UK greenhouse gas emissions up 2.8 percent in 2010


    LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's greenhouse gas emissions rose 2.8 percent in 2010 due to increased power generation, largely due to cold weather early and late in the year, provisional data from the government showed on Thursday.

    In 2010, UK emissions were provisionally estimated at 582.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, compared to 566.3 million tonnes in 2009, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said in a statement.

    Under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, the UK has to cut emissions 12.5 per cent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012. Britain also has its own, longer-term, aim of reducing emissions by 34 percent by 2020.

    "We will only be able to calculate a figure which correctly represents UK progress toward (its) targets once the 2010 EU ETS (emissions trading scheme) results become available in May," DECC told Reuters.

    Regarding progress toward the Kyoto target, DECC said total greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 were 25.3 percent below the base year level of 2009, based on Thursday's provisional figures, not including the EU ETS.

    On Friday, the EU Commission will release data on 2010 emissions from European firms in its emissions trading scheme.

    Carbon dioxide accounted for around 84 percent of the total, and was up 3.8 percent from 2009. This represents the first year-on-year rise in carbon dioxide since 2005.

    "The increase in CO2 emissions between 2009 and 2010 resulted primarily from a rise in residential gas use, combined with fuel switching away from nuclear power to coal and gas for electricity generation," DECC said.

    Emissions from electricity generation rose by 4 percent last year to 156.2 million tonnes.

    The sector accounted for a third of all CO2 emissions, the provisional estimates showed.

    In 2010, an estimated 39 percent of the country's CO2 emissions were from the energy supply sector, 25 per cent from transport, 17 per cent from residential fossil fuel use and 16 per cent from business, the report said.

    "Our economy is as dangerously hooked on fossil fuels as it was twenty years ago -- so emissions are bound to rise as the economy picks up," said Friends of the Earth Executive Director Andy Atkins.

    In a separate statement, DECC said UK energy production fell 5.8 per cent in 2010 to 157.2 million tonnes of oil equivalent.

    (Reporting by Nina Chestney)