Carbon dioxide emissions from more than 11,000 regulated power plants and factories in Europe are expected to have risen by 1.3% in 2011 from the previous year, Deutsche Bank said in a research note Monday.
CO2 emissions from plants regulated by the EU Emissions Trading System are expected to have climbed to 1.963 billion mt in 2011, up 25 million mt from a revised 2010 estimate of 1.938 billion mt, driven by a rise in combustion activities, the bank said.
Plant operators face a legally binding deadline to report their CO2 emissions from the previous calendar year to national authorities by March 31 each year.
On April 2, the system's regulator, the European Commission, is expected to release partial verified CO2 data from plants across the 27-nation bloc, plus non-members Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
"We expect emissions from the power sector to rise by [around] 21 million mt, or 1.7%, with Spain, Romania and Portugal experiencing the biggest relative increases in their 2011 emissions," the bank said in a note by its energy analysts Mark Lewis and Isabelle Curien.
"By contrast, we expect Sweden, Finland, Denmark and France to post the largest relative decreases in their power sector emissions," it said.
The non-energy industrial sectors' emissions are likely to be almost unchanged overall, the bank said.
"We expect the steel sector to register a 2.7% increase in its 2011 emissions, cement to be flat, and the refinery and pulp-and-paper sectors to show slight declines. Overall, this means we expect non-power/combustion ETS emissions to be essentially flat," the bank said.
Overall CO2 emissions from combustion activities are expected to have risen to 1.437 billion mt in 2011, up 1.66% from 1.413 billion mt in 2010.
Cement sector emissions are expected to have climbed to 154.1 million mt in 2011, up 0.17% from 153.9 million mt in 2010, while emissions from refineries are expected to have fallen to 142.6 million mt, down 0.68% from 143.6 million mt in 2010.
Iron and steel emissions are expected to have risen to 115.5 million mt, up 2.67% from 113.7 million mt previously, while the pulp and paper sector's emissions are expected to have dipped to 29.5 million mt, down 1.29% from 29.9 million mt previously, it said.
Deutsche Bank said the most recent available data on the EC's website shows EU ETS emissions of 1.932 billion mt for 2010, without data from Cyprus.
The bank estimated that CO2 emissions from Cyprus stood at roughly 6 million mt in 2010, bringing its revised EU ETS baseline up to 1.938 billion mt for that year.
Looking ahead, CO2 emissions under the EU ETS in 2012 are likely to fall 18 million mt to 1.920 billion mt, it said.
"At this stage we are not making any change to our 2012 emissions forecasts, but with the eurozone sovereign debt crisis still posing a threat to the macro outlook going forward we will continue to monitor carefully the downside risk to our projections as this unfolds," the bank said.
