The country is making progress towards cutting down on its ecological footprint

Feb 2, 2013 10:41 GMT  ·  By

A new report states that, courtesy of their investing in green-oriented technologies, the United States can now take pride in having considerably lowered the amounts of harmful emissions they release into the atmosphere on a regular basis.

More precisely, the report shows that, over the course of the past 5 years, the country has witnessed a fall of as much as 13% of its overall level of carbon emissions.

Apparently, this means that the country has managed to hit their lowest levels of emissions since 1994, Business Green informs us.

Needless to say, the United States' improving on their ecological footprint to such an extent can only be linked to their doubling their renewable energy capacity and to their upping their dependence on natural gas.

As specialists explain, these investments in harvesting green energy sources and increasing the use of natural gas have allowed the country to cut down on its coal and oil consumption, something which led to their no longer producing as much environmental pollution as they used to in the past.

Raw numbers indicate that, since 2007 until present days, natural gas jumped from 23.4% to 27.2% of total energy consumption, whereas renewables jumped from 6.4% to 9.4%.

Furthermore, the country has made significant progress towards curbing energy waste and encouraging its residents to let go of their old vehicles in favor of new and environmentally-friendly ones.

Commenting on the findings of this reports, the Head of Policy Analysis at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Ethan Zindler, made a case of how, “These new energy technologies, which some still claim aren't ready for prime time, are already making a major impact on US Energy.”

“And the US has only begun to receive the full benefit of lower prices for clean energy equipment,” Ethan Zindler went on to add.

For the time being, one can only hope that the US will keep up the good work and that President Barack Obama will succeed in further reducing the country's emissions.