Climate change mitigation - Drivers and pressures (Hungary)

The economic restructuring of the 1990s played an important role in reducing domestic emissions of greenhouse gases. Since then, there has been no significant change in total emissions.

In 2007, total emissions of greenhouse gases in Hungary were 75.9 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents. This is 5 % below the ten-year average of the quite stable period of 1996-2005. Taking into account also the mostly carbon-absorbing processes in the Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, the net emissions of Hungary were 71.8 million tonnes CO₂ eq.

In 2007, the energy sector (including energy industries, fugitive emissions from fuels as well as the transport sector) accounted for 75 % of total GHG emissions and agriculture was the second-largest emitting sector with 13 %. Industrial processes contributed 7 % to emissions, while the waste sector (including solid waste and wastewater treatment - with the former showing an increasing tendency) represented 5 % of total emissions.

 

 

The energy sector plays a key role in emissions in Hungary, since the significant part of energy consumption is covered by fossil energy sources, over 75 % of which is imported - a fact that is disadvantageous from the aspect of both climate change mitigation and energy security. Renewable energy production accounted for just 4.9 % of total energy use.

In the last two decades, total energy consumption has been decoupled from economic growth whereas - after almost two decades of decreasing or stagnating tendencies - in the last few years both electricity and total energy consumption have reached higher levels again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: National Inventory Report, Hungarian Meteorological Service

Similar to global trends, transport is the most dynamically increasing category within the energy sector both in terms of energy consumption and its negative impacts on climate change.
The share of the transport sector within total GHG emissions rose from 6.44 % to 16.2 % between 1985 and 2005. Its share in the final energy consumption amounts to 21 %, with road transportation being the most significant emitter.

Due to technical developments (changes in the fuel mix, etc.), specific CO2 emissions have been reduced significantly, but this decrease is being overcompensated by the rising number of cars and vehicle-kms, and a significant growth is expected in the emissions of the sector. The shift from climate-friendly transportation towards more emission-intensive ones (from public to individual transport, from railway to road transportation) is an unfavourable trend to be dealt with.

The industrial restructuring completed at the beginning of 1990s has resulted in notable decreases in energy use and in emissions, but no similar change is expected in the medium term. Current energy consumption by industry accounts for one-third of the total direct energy consumption, showing slight fluctuations in the past few years.

Agriculture is the second-largest emitting sector in Hungary: intensive agricultural production plays an important part in emissions because of the high CH4 and N2O emissions from animal husbandry and plant production..

However, the LULUCF result in sinking almost 6 % of the total emissions and 8 % of the total CO2 emissions. Forests sequestrate approx. 4–5 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

More detailed information on the state and impacts is available here: http://klima.kvvm.hu/documents/32/NIR_HUN_080415.pdf