Update: I was e-mailed a good question about how much CO2 is emitted by gas flaring. The World Bank says eliminating gas flaring worldwide would reduce 400 million tons of carbon dioxide, more carbon dioxide than all the projects currently registered under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, which is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the developing world.
Iraq is responsible for about 5 percent of global flaring by the World Bank's reckoning, so that would put its contribution at 19 million tons annually. As I mentioned above, some of the estimates out there are more conservative than the World Bank's, so it might be more like 15 million tons.
Marianne Lavelle of DC @ Feb 15, 2008 16:02:31 PM
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