LISBON – Portugal recorded three consecutive years of economic growth alongside declining pollutant emissions between 2021 and 2023 for the first time since 1995, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported yesterday.
The trend demonstrates a “persistent decoupling” between economic growth and emissions, according to the INE.
Portugal’s Global Warming Potential, a measure that expresses all greenhouse gases in terms of their equivalent impact compared with carbon dioxide, fell by 8.9 percent in 2023 from the previous year, totaling 52.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the lowest level since 1995. Meanwhile, the country’s gross value added rose 3.1 percent in 2023.
The institute attributed the decline of pollutant emissions mainly to the energy sector, where renewable electricity production accounted for more than 60 percent of total generation. Favorable hydrological conditions supported this growth, while reduced reliance on natural gas-fired power plants, whose output dropped by more than 40 percent, also contributed to the decrease in emissions.
The closure of coal-fired power plants at Sines, about 150 km south of Lisbon, and Pego, around 130 km northeast of the capital, completed in 2022 and fully reflected in 2023, further consolidated the reduction trend, the institute said.
– Xinhua
September 2011 file photo of Portugal's National Statistics Institute in Lisbon - Photo courtesy of Joao Carvalho/Wikimedia Commons
