the major emitters were USA and Western Europe, followed by Japan. The major
expansion of the emission for such areas was during the 1950s–1980s when also
Eastern Europe started to grow. Since then, an almost steady state was reached for
the abovementioned areas, while starting the expansion of other areas such as
China, India, Middle East, Africa, and other Pacific Countries than Japan. Recently,
China has passed USA and is the major emitter of CO 2 worldwide.
Figures in Table 2.2 show that the production of electricity is the major emitter
of CO 2 , followed by transport and manufacturing industries. Some comments are
appropriate in order to better understand the figures in the table. At the world level,
the increase of emission for electricity production (line 1, column 2–3) tells about
the spreading of such utility in areas not served so far. In fact, major increases are in
the East Asia Pacific zone, Latin America, Middle East and North Africa, South
Asia, and Sub-Saharan zone. Considering the partition by income, the increase is of
Fig. 2.2 Trend of world
population growth [5]
Fig. 2.3 Trend of world
population growth rate [5]
2.3 Carbon Dioxide Emissions
19