European countries use quite a few fossil fuels per capita, despite boistrous green rhetoric, according to a graph published Tuesday.
Belgium and The Netherlands have the highest per capita consumption of coal, oil and natural gas in Europe, closely followed by Germany. Partially due to this heavy use of conventional energy, Europe’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are actually rising while American emissions are falling.
Fossil fuel consumption per-person in European countries last year pic.twitter.com/1V3wSRWJRn
— Carbon Counter (@CO2Counter) September 14, 2016
The chart was compiled by Robert Wilson, an ecosystem and climate change researcher at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, based on power generation data from last year. Wilson has a long research history studying the potential impacts of global warming and highlighting the adverse impacts of wind and solar power.
CO2 emissions for European countries will keep rising in 2015 despite $1.2 trillion in subsidies for wind, solar and other green energy, according to The European Commission.
Europe’s 2015 CO2 emissions increased by 0.7 percent relative to 2014, while U.S. emissions fell to lowest levels in two decades. America spends far less than the European Union (EU) in supporting green energy, but U.S. CO2 emissions are falling thanks to the development of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which the EU repeatedly slows with regulations.
EU regulations, financial support for green energy and taxes force the average European to spend 26.9 cents per kilowatt-hour on electricity, according to calculations performed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. Denmark and Germany have some the highest electrical bills in Europe, paying roughly 39 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average American only spends 10.4 cents on the same.
Both Denmark and Germany are now reversing course and backing away from green energy. Germany’s government plans to replace most of the subsidies for local green energy with a system of competitive auctions where the cheapest electricity wins after the country’s wind and solar power systems damaged the power grid and made the system vulnerable to blackouts.
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