February 17 (SeeNews) - Romania and Greece were the only tow countries out of the five EU members from Southeast Europe (SEE) to record an annual decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in the third quarter of 2022 while their real economy expanded, the EU statistical office said.
The decline in Romania was the most significant, with emissions down 1.97% on the year to 29.5 million tonnes, while in Greece emissions edged down 0.5%, according to a data release from Eurostat earlier this week.
By contrast, Croatia led in greenhouse gas emissions growth in SEE in the quarter under review, recording a 2.6% yearly rise to 6.15 million tonnes. Bulgaria registered an increase of 1.58% to some 15 million tonnes, whereas emissions in Slovenia marked a negligible 0.07% rise to 3.8 million tonnes, the data set showed.
Total emissions went up by 2% to in the EU as a whole in the third quarter of last year to 854 million tonnes of CO2-equivalents, the measuring unit used by Eurostat to compare emissions from various greenhouse gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide in terms of global warming potential. Emissions in the review quarter were higher year-on-year in 16 out of the 27 EU member states, with Ireland booking the biggest annual jump, of 17%.
"This increase is largely related to the effect of the economic rebound leading to gross domestic product (GDP) growth after the sharp decrease in activity due to the COVID-19 crisis. In fact, compared with the pre-pandemic third quarter of 2019, EU economy greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 4%," Eurostat noted.
The segments that chiefly contributed to EU emissions growth were manufacturing with 23%, electricity, gas supply with 21%, households and agriculture each with 14%, and transportation and storage with 13%.