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WASHINGTON — America’s greenhouse gas emissions from energy and industry rose 6.2 percent in 2021 as the economy begins to recover from pandemic lows and the country’s coal plants are revived, according to a preliminary estimate released Monday by the Rhodium Group.

The backlash wasn’t a complete surprise: The country’s emissions fell more than 10 percent in 2020It’s the biggest drop in a year on record after the first coronavirus outbreak triggered widespread lockdowns and energy use slumped to its lowest level in decades. Emissions were expected to bounce back as restrictions eased and economic activity rebounded.

“If anything, the recovery in emissions last year was lower than it could have been as the pandemic was still causing disruptions and the economy was not returning to normal,” said Kate Larsen, partner at Rhodium Group, a research and consulting firm. . “Emissions are still well below 2019 levels.”

The rise in emissions highlighted the challenges President Biden faces in his quest to steer the country away from oil, gas and coal and help prevent the drastic rise in global temperatures.

Mr. Biden has set a goal of reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030; That’s roughly the rate at which scientists say the entire world must follow to prevent Earth from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Celsius). degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, minimizing the risk of catastrophic effects. The planet has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius in the past century.

However, Rhodium Group estimates that US emissions are only 17.4 percent below 2005 levels after last year’s recovery. A few end studies They discovered that without major new policies that would accelerate the US transition to wind, solar and other clean energy, it would fall far behind meeting Mr. Biden’s climate goals.

Whether Mr Biden can enforce these policies an important question: The Build Back Better Act, which includes $555 billion in spending and tax incentives for renewable energy, electric cars and other climate programs, remains elusive on Capitol Hill. In a crucial Democratic vote, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin III has so far backed out of support for the bill, although Democrats are expected to try again this year. Republicans uniformly opposed the bill.

Recent analysis, led by researchers at Princeton University, found that if the law were passed in its current form, it could potentially take over the United States. most of the way to climate goalby tripling or quadrupling the speed of wind and solar installations, boosting sales of electric vehicles, and encouraging utilities to retire more coal plants over the next decade.

But for now, the United States remains deeply dependent on fossil fuels to power its economy.

The Rhodium Group estimates that transportation, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases, will see a 10 percent increase in emissions in 2021 after a 15 percent drop in 2020. Much of this recovery was driven by the rise in diesel-fueled trucks transporting goods to consumers as e-commerce boomed, with freight traffic rising above pre-pandemic levels last year.

Passenger travel in cars and planes has been slower to recover, as uncertainty about new variants has disrupted travel plans and kept many people at home. Gasoline consumption does not return to 2019 levels until October, while jet fuel demand remains well below pre-pandemic levels.

There are some signs that vehicles on the road are starting to change: Sales of electric cars, a key technology for reducing emissions, soared to record highs in 2021. 5 percent of all new car sales in the third quarter, according to Atlas Public Policy, a research firm. But electric cars are not yet common enough to cause a major dent in emissions, and very few trucks have been electrified to date.

Coal, the top polluter of all fossil fuels, also made a big comeback last year, with emissions from coal-fired power plants rising 17 percent in 2021 after falling 19 percent in 2020. While America still burns far less coal than it used to, ten years ago, the fuel is far from dead.

In the years before the pandemic, America’s power companies were retiring hundreds of coal plants and replacing them with cheaper and cleaner natural gas, wind and solar power. Then, in 2020, nationwide electricity use fell and many utilities they operated the remaining coal plants much less, because it was often the most expensive fuel.

But that dynamic has been reversed last year: Many utilities have started operating coal plants more frequently, as natural gas prices nearly doubled in 2021, partly due to a cold winter and increased exports. (On average, burning coal for electricity produces twice as much carbon dioxide as burning natural gas, but using natural gas also produces copious amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.)

“It really shows how dependent we are on cheap natural gas prices to keep coal down,” Ms. Larsen said. “Overall, we expect coal to decline further in the coming years, but unless new policies are implemented to clean up the electricity sector, the coal industry may see some lifeline if there are major fluctuations in the gas market. ”

A final report The U.S. Energy Information Administration has predicted that coal emissions will likely fall again next year if natural gas prices stabilize. Electric companies have already announced plans to retire at least 28 percent of remaining coal plants By 2035, the agency said. And energy companies have installed new wind turbines and solar panels at a record rate over the past two years.

Still, achieving Mr. Biden’s climate goals will be daunting: To do so, the Rhodium Group estimates the United States will need to reduce emissions by about 5 percent each year between now and 2030, a much faster pace than the country has ever been. . achieve before the pandemic Solar industry last month warned He said new installations could slow in 2022 due to supply chain restrictions and rising material costs.

The Rhodium Group also noted that the US has made insufficient progress in reducing emissions from two other key sectors: industry and buildings.

Emissions from heavy industries such as cement and steel rose 3.6 percent in 2021 after falling 6.2 percent in 2020. Such factories, which account for roughly one-fifth of the country’s emissions, proving difficult to clean without new technologiesand industrial emissions have remained largely flat since 2005.

Homes and buildings also produce direct emissions by burning fossil fuels such as natural gas in furnaces, hot water heaters, stoves, ovens and tumble dryers. Building emissions rose 1.9 percent in 2021 after falling 7.6 percent in 2020.

The Rhodium Group report only looked at emissions from energy and industrial sources and did not look at sectors such as agriculture. It also did not take into account any increase in emissions. from last year’s forest fires In California, Colorado, and the Pacific Northwest, which burns millions of acres of forest and grassland, sending the carbon dioxide trapped in all those trees into the atmosphere.

Using satellite data from the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service predicted in December North American wildfires last year released 83 million tons of carbon dioxide. Forests engulfed in flames may eventually regrow and absorb carbon dioxide as they do, but that process will take years. And scientists have warned that wildfires will become larger and more frequent as the planet warms.

The United States was not the only country to have seen a major recovery in fossil fuel use last year. In November, researchers at the Global Carbon Project estimated that global carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry rose 4.9 percent in 2021 after a 5.4 percent decline in 2020.