Country ranking by oil production emissions

Emissions associated with oil and gas production are a significant source of greenhouse gases. A new analysis ranks countries by emission levels and identifies the major sources of emissions, a first step toward policy to regulate oil and gas production practices. Until renewable sources of energy like wind or solar become more reliable and less expensive, people worldwide remain reliant on fossil fuels for transportation and energy. This means that if people want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there need to be better ways of mitigating the effects of extracting and burning oil and gas. An analysis comparing emissions associated with oil production techniques globally found that the burning of unwanted gas associated with oil production remains the most carbon-intensive part of producing oil. (Image credit: Getty Images) Now, Adam Brandt , assistant professor of energy resources engineering in the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences at Stanford, and his colleagues have performed a first global analysis comparing emissions associated with oil production techniques - a step toward developing policies that could reduce those emissions. They published their work Aug.