What are the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions?
Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities such as the burning of oil, coal and gas, as well as deforestation have greatly increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. As we can see from figure 1, almost all CO2 emissions (about 96.5%) come from fossil fuels use. The 3 types of fossil fuels that are used the most are coal, natural gas and petroleum. When fossil fuels are combusted, the carbon stored in them is emitted almost entirely as CO2.1 The three main sectors that use fossil fuels are: • Transportation • Utilities (power, gas, oil etc…) • Industrial production Figure 1:Source: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (2008), EPA.
