Pennsylvania ranks 3rd in statewide CO2 emissions for 2011

• Susan Phillips
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  Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

Overall, carbon dioxide emissions are decreasing nationally, down 12 percent in 2012 from a pre-recession peak of 6023 million metric tons in 2007. Pennsylvania is following that trend, not leading it, not lagging behind, but landing somewhere in the middle at 10.9 percent CO2 reductions between 2000 and 2011. Still the state ranks third in energy related CO2 emissions for 2011, behind California and Texas, according to a report out this week by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The term “energy-related” refers to the energy produced in the state. Some states, including Pennsylvania, produce more than they consume, exporting electricity to other states. But when it comes to per capita energy-related CO2 emissions, the rankings can look very different. Instead of Texas at the top of the list, Wyoming produced the highest per capita CO2 emissions, while Pennsylvania ranks 21st. Coal remains the state’s largest source of carbon dioxide pollution. Under newly proposed rules by the EPA, Pennsylvania needs to develop a plan to cut its carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent by 2030.

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