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UNITED NATIONS — In its first major climate report to the U.N. in four years, the U.S. projected Tuesday that its climate-warming greenhouse gases will grow by 4 percent through 2020.
The first such report submitted under the Obama administration includes a 1.5 percent rise in carbon-dioxide emissions. (CO2 from fossil fuel burning still accounts for about four-fifths of all U.S. global warming gases.)
But it’s the culpability of hydrofluorocarbons — promoted worldwide to replace chemicals that harm the globe’s ozone layer — that gets a starring role. Though HFCs account for only about 2 percent of the globe’s climate-warming gases, their share is expected to grow by up to a third of all greenhouse gases by mid-century.
