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Estatísticas do Ambiente 2010

SUMMARY

In the year that Portugal ranked at 14 in a list of 58 countries in terms of best policy performance for climate change according to the Climate Change Performance Index, Statistics Portugal releases a completely renovated publication on environment statistics, including 11 new chapters, covering economic analysis, physical indicators on environment and a large range of tables with basic environmental data.

The main overall results are the following: H UMAN ACTIVITIES WITH DIRECT IMPACT ON ENVIRONMENT

The population growth and the shift on consumption patterns generates strong marks on certain human activities such as energy production, agriculture (trends on production and kind of crops) and manufacture branches which comprise the major pollution and environment aggression sources.

In the last few decades large areas of farming soil have been abandoned: from1999 to 2009 around 111 thousand holdings stopped producing, the utilized agriculture area (UAA) declined to an area below 195 thousand acres and the livestock density index dropped to 0.06 heads per acre of UAA.

The turnover of pesticides and equivalent products declined around 27% when comparing 2009 with 2006 and stabilized in 2009.

In the last few years a downward trend on the mineral fertilizer consumption is clear, which summed up to 176 thousand tonnes from which 60% are nitrogen fertilizers. In 2011 Nitrogen Balance showed a surplus of 52 thousand tonnes, corresponding to an excess of 14 kg of N per acre of UAA.

There is clear evidence that the number of bio farmers and bio farming area declined from 2007 to 2009, corresponding to less 14% and less 76 thousand acres respectively.

The primary energy consumption in 2009 reached 24 thousand ktep, which meant a decrease of 7% from 2006 to 2009.

The energy consumption in 2009 summed up 18 thousand ktep corresponding to a 1.7 tep consumption per capita and a drop of 6% between 2006 and 2009.

The consumption of electricity in 2009 reached 4123 ktep, near 23% of the total energy consumption

Energy efficiency, after a rise of more than 11% from 2006 to 2008, declined 1% in 2009 which seems to be a reversal of the upward trend.

The proportion of renewable energy sources to the primary consumption represented 20% in 2009 and between 2006 and 2009 such contribution raised on an annual average rate of 4.2%. A IR AND CLIMATE

From 2006 to 2009 there was strong evidence of a decline of the Potential Greenhouse Effect which dropped by 9%.

After a significant upward pace until 2006, the emission curve of GHG started to decline and in 2009 was placed 3 p.p. below the Kyoto Protocol target.

In 2009 near 71% of the total emissions of GHG came from the “energy sector”, for which stress should be laid on electricity production (27%) and transports (26%) as the main sources.

In 2006 the per capita emissions were about 7.58 t of CO

2

equivalents, near 0.7 ton more than in 2009 with a slowdown to 6.9 t of CO

2

equivalents per inhabitant.

In 2009 the carbon intensity for Portugal reached 442 tonnes of CO

2

equivalents/10 6 Euros at 2006 prices.

According the air quality index during the period 2006 - 2010 most of the time was attributed the classification of “good” and since 2008 the levels of medium, low and bad declined strongly.

In the period between 2006 and 2010, the Public Administration expenditure related to the protection of climate and air environment although not weighty in total expenditure with environment protection evolved at an average rate of 116% per year.