EU's greenhouse gases increase due to economic rebound

Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, for the second quarter of 2021, have increased by 18 percent compared with the same quarter in the previous year, said the bloc’s statistics office on Monday.

Eurostat said that the increase  is largely due to the effect of the economic rebound after the sharp decrease of activity in the same quarter due to the pandemic. 

The office said that most emissions of greenhouse gases were due to manufacture and construction (34 percent of the total), electricity supply (19 percent ), agriculture (14 percent ), transport services (8 percent ) and services other than transport (8 percent ). 

Meanwhile, the office said that households emitted 101 million tonnes CO2-eq for their transport (12 percent); in addition to 52 million tonnes CO2-eq for heating and other purposes (6 percent).

The EU is working on decarbonising its economy as countries want to achieve net zero by 2050 or earlier.