Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming

Posted: 23-Oct-2003; Updated: 05-May-2005

With only 5 percent of the world's population, the United States produces 23.4 percent of the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels.^* The electric utility industry is responsible for an estimated 36 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, while transportation accounts for another 30 percent.^* Texas alone produces more carbon dioxide than either the United Kingdom or Canada.^* Texas produces and uses more electricity than any other state in the country.^* Texas utilities, depending heavily on fossil fuels, for example, contributed about 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 1995, or about 30 percent of all greenhouses gases emitted in Texas. Without major changes in how Texas produces its energy, these levels are expected to continue.

The environmental implications of global warming are serious. Higher average temperatures could hasten melting of the polar ice caps, raising sea levels and distorting rainfall patterns. Coastal cities and plant and animal habitat could be destroyed. An alteration of climate could also reduce crop production. While certain areas of the Earth might actually benefit from global warming, others would suffer disastrous effects.

In Texas, climatic changes predicted as a result of global warming could profoundly alter how Texans live and work. In Dallas, for example, if the predictions of the Panel on Climate Change are true, the number of days when the temperature reaches 100 degrees F could increase from 19 to 78 per year by 2050. In Central Texas, average temperatures could go up 5 degrees during the same period.^* Water availability might also be affected. Rainfall would decline in most areas of, and the hotter temperatures would increase the rate of evaporation, resulting in a reduced water supply. Coastal areas, however, would likely face more intense rainfall, as clouds forming from increased evaporation of ocean waters give rise to more violent storms. Low-level areas along the coast could be subject to more flooding from increased rainfall and rising sea levels.  Texas may, however, also derive some positive benefits from warmer annual temperatures. One of these effects is that milder winters may reduce the risk of freezes that cripple citrus crops.^*

Overall, global temperatures have increased about 1 degree F in the past 130 years, half of that in the past 40 years. A body of 2,000 scientists around the globe known as the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that by the year 2100, the average surface temperature will increase an additional 3.5 degrees F from 1990 levels.^* The effects of these increases would be felt unevenly around the globe, with temperature changing less at the equator than at higher latitudes.

To delay or prevent global warming, world and national leaders have called for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, to be accomplished through a shift away from the use of oil, gas, and coal and toward the use of more renewable energy sources like solar power. The 1992 Rio treaty on climate change committed signatory nations to begin negotiations toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

In December 1997 most of the world's nations hammered out a world agreement in Kyoto, Japan, that established limits and phased in reductions on the release of several greenhouse gases.^* The agreement commits the developed nations - including the United States - to an 11 percent reduction in greenhouse gases over 1990 levels by 2010, but it does not determine what, if any, reductions developing nations must make, nor does it spell out exactly how the developed nations will make reductions. In addition, in 2001, the new Bush administration announced to the consternation of most nations that it would not seek ratification of the agreement or to begin cutting carbon dioxide emissions as many had hoped. Many of the developed countries which signed the agreement are developing emission reduction plans.