BBC reports global CO2 may be in 'permanent slowdown' despite jump in coal use in UK, Spain, France, and Germany. Suffering Europe economies forced to go back to cheap coal

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10/31/13, "Report suggests 'permanent slowdown' in CO2 emissions," BBC, McGrath

(Following about increase in coal use is sidebar on BBC article, main article about CO2 follows).

"Back to the black stuff"

"The rise of shale in the US pushed down the cost of coal, beleaguered European economies turned to it, in ever-increasing amounts. 

The UK leads the way with its biggest rise in coal use since 2006, up 24% in a year. A similar rise was seen in Spain, with France and Germany also showing increases. Ironically, Poland and the Czech Republic reduced their use by 4 and 8% respectively. 

"Countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Italy have new coal plants and that is a decision for 40 years ahead - you can control particulates, it's not so much a problem. But for the CO2 it's quite dramatic," said Dr Maenhout."

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(Following is from main BBC story about slowdown in CO2 emissions):

"Global emissions of carbon dioxide may be showing the first signs of a "permanent slowdown" in the rate of increase.

According to a new report, emissions in 2012 increased at less than half the average over the past decade.

Key factors included the shift to shale gas for energy in the US while China increased its use of hydropower by 23%.

However the use of cheap coal continues to be an issue, with UK consumption up by almost a quarter.

The report on trends in global emissions has been produced annually by the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre.

It finds that emissions of carbon dioxide reached a new record in 2012 of 34.5bn tonnes....

But the rate of increase in CO2 was 1.4%, despite the global economy growing by 3.5%....

In the US, the shale revolution continues to make waves. Overall emissions were down by 4% in the year mainly because of a continuing shift from coal to gas in the generation of electricity. Shale is now responsible for one third of US gas production and almost one quarter of total oil production....

The other major decline came in the European Union where economic recession in the 27 nation bloc saw emissions decline by 1.3%. This was down to a decrease in energy consumption of oil and gas, with a 4% decline in road transport."...

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Comment: It's still the evil US's fault. They forced coal to be cheap which forced economies starved by greedy, parasitic monarchs like Prince Charles to have to use coal again.