Environmental News Network - Just 5 Percent of Electric Plants Responsible for 73 percent of Power Sector Emissions

Details: By Yale Environment 360; 29.Jul

Just 5 percent of all power plants globally — all of them coal-fired — are responsible for 73 percent of electricity-sector carbon emissions, according to a new study that calls for cutting emissions from “hyper-polluting” power plants.

Cheryl Porter

Just 5 percent of all power plants globally — all of them coal-fired — are responsible for 73 percent of electricity-sector carbon emissions, according to a new study that calls for cutting emissions from “hyper-polluting” power plants.

“One of the challenges climate activists face is determining who exactly is to blame for the climate crisis,” Don Grant, a sociologist at the University of Colorado Boulder and co-author of the paper, told VICE. “Our study begins to address this problem in identifying super polluters.”

For the study, Grant and his colleagues analyzed emissions data on more than 29,000 fossil-fuel power plants in 221 countries to identify the world’s most prolific polluters. These power plants were uniformly coal-powered, highly inefficient, and concentrated in the Global North.

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Just 5 Percent of Electric Plants Responsible for 73 percent of Power Sector Emissions