2024-12-31 17:35 update: 2025-01-02, 14:14
Photo PAP/Rafał Guz
Poland accounted for 0.69 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions in 2023, the country's statistical office GUS has reported.
The figure placed the country behind Germany and France whose share in global greenhouse gas emissions last year was 1.29 percent and 0.73 percent, respectively, according to the report published on Tuesday.
The world's largest emitters were China (30.1 pct), the US (11.3 pct) and India (7.8 pct), GUS also said.
According to the authors of the report, in 2022, fuel combustion accounted for 78.1 percent of greenhouse gases emitted in Poland, industrial processes and product use for 6.2 percent, and volatile fuel emissions for 5.8 percent.
The data showed that, in 2022, the largest amount of carbon dioxide in transport was generated by passenger cars (51 pct) and heavy and light trucks (37.4 pct and 11.3 pct, respectively).
GUS added that "agriculture is one of the main sources of pollution that negatively impacts the natural environment." Its share in Poland's production of greenhouse gas emissions reached 8.8 percent in 2022, GUS wrote.
It added that nitrogen and phosphorus compounds unused in agriculture can leak into water, and nitrogen into the air.
According to the report, Poland used 1,038,000 tonnes of nitrogen fertilisers in 2021, but less than Germany (around 1,200,000 tonnes) and France (around 1,900,000 tonnes).
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed countries committed to an annual contribution of USD 100 billion to international financing of climate-related activities (until 2025). Poland contributed EUR 19.4 million in 2022 alone, and EUR 49.4 million in 2018.
The data provided by GUS concern the year 2023 or 2022 and, also "in exceptional cases - the last year available in international databases."
The main source of data referred to by GUS is the EU's statistcal office Eurostat. (PAP)
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