The carbon intensity of the Portuguese economy reached its lowest value since 1995 in 2022, with 82.1% of greenhouse gas emissions concentrated in five sectors of activity, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) revealed this Tuesday. .
In 2022, the The groups of activities with the highest CO2 emissions were industry, transport, information and communications and energy, water and sanitationtotaling 67.3% of emissions.
Families were responsible for 18.4% of CO2 emissions.
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) grew by 3.7% compared to the previous year, in a context of “strong economic growth”, in which the Gross Value Added (GVA) increased by 6.9% in volume, highlighted the INE.
The Acidification Potential and the Tropospheric Ozone Formation Potential also increased, by 4.9% and 4.2%, respectively.
However, the combination between the positive variation in GWP emissions (+3.7%) and the more intense positive variation in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (+7.0%) led to a reduction in the intensity of carbon in the national economy of 2.9%. , “the lowest result since 1995.”
“After the pandemic period, which had caused a general reduction in emissions due to the decrease in economic activity and mobility restrictions, The year 2022 marked a return to more intense levels of activity, combined with a global energy crisis.“said the INE when announcing the Atmospheric Emissions Account.
The change in trend towards reductions in greenhouse gas emissions observed in 2022, and already observed since 2017, was, according to the Institute, influenced by factors such as economic recovery, with the resumption of activity and the consumption of fossil fuelsthe global energy crisis and the substitution of natural gas for more polluting liquid fuels.
Also the severe drought, which limited water production and forced the use of fossil sources, and the greater dependence on fossil fuels in sectors such as tourism and international trade contributed to reversing the trend towards reducing emissions.
Methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), which represented, respectively, 16.9% and 5.7% of the GWP, come mainly from agriculture and sanitation.
Fluorinated gases, mainly associated with industrial and commercial air conditioning and refrigeration systems, contributed 3.2% of the total GWP.
As in the previous year, industry was the sector that contributed the most to the GWP (23.3%), contrary to the trend observed since 1998, in which energy, water and sanitation predominated.
Due to increases in emissions in some sectors, mainly transport, information and communications (+28.0%), trade and vehicle repair and accommodation and catering (+7.7%), in other service activities (+7.1 %) and in finance, insurance and real estate activities (+6.7%), “the continuation of the economic recovery after the context of the Covid-19 pandemic that occurred in 2022 will not be unrelated,” said the INE.
Source: Observadora
