The information and views expressed in this document are those of the authors and may not in any circumstance be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.
ⓒ European Communities, 2009.
Reproduction of the data is authorized, except for commercial purposes, provided the source is fully acknowledged in the form "Source: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)/Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), release version 4.0. http://edgar.jrc.ec.europe.eu, 2009".
May 18, 2009
Introduction
This background documentation provides information about the latest results from a joint project of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL): the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). This new dataset, EDGAR v4.0, gives a unique detailed overview covering 35 years (1970-2005) of greenhouse gas emissions by country and emission sector. The dataset does not only cover carbon dioxide (CO2) but also the other relevant greenhouse gases: methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorcarbons (HFCs), perfluorcarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).
As international negotiations on climate-change ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen later this year are prepared, a global perspective on historical and present day trends in greenhouse gas emissions in both industrialised and developing countries is of great importance to all participating parties. Although estimates for more recent years are available for industrialised countries reporting their emissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and under the Kyoto protocol, inventories for developing countries vary in availability, completeness and detail. The new dataset helps to fill this information gap by providing consistent inventories for both industrialised and developing countries.
Global emission trends of greenhouse gas emissions (1970-2005)
The EDGAR project uses the latest scientific information and data from international statistics on energy production and consumption, industrial manufacturing, agricultural production, waste treatment and disposal and burning of biomass in order to model historical and present day emissions for all countries in the world in a comparable and consistent manner. Details on the methodologies and data applied are presented.
In order to compare different greenhouse gas emissions the emissions of individual gases have to be converted into CO2-equivalents. The metric for this conversion is the Global Warming Potential expressing the contribution to global warming of the specific greenhouses in relation to carbon dioxide. Throughout this background document the 100 year GWP values as used in the Kyoto Protocol are applied (as published in the IPCC Second Assessment Report). Figure 1 present emissions of greenhouse for the sector described above, including biomass burning emissions. This means including CO2 emissions from forest fires but excluding CO2 emissions from biofuels combustion, and burning of agricultural waste, grasslands and savanna fields assuming that the carbon released during combustion equals the carbon uptake of the biomass during re-growing within a year. As shown in Figure 1, global emissions of greenhouse gases increased from 29 Pg CO2-equivalents in 1970 to 47.5 Pg in 2005 with important growth in CO2 in the energy sector but also with a rather strong contribution of N2O and CH4 emissions. In the 1970-2005 period covered by the EDGAR v4.0 dataset in total ∼1300 Pg CO2-equivalents have been released into the atmosphere. In the first years of the new century, global emissions showed a stronger annual increase than in the 1990s.
Emission trends in industrialized and developing countries (1970-2005)
As mentioned in the introduction the dataset presented here aims to fill an information gap on inventories from developing countries (often expressed as non-Annex I countries) compared. In addition, the dataset provides historical data on greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries 20 year further back in time than the national inventories.
In order to compare emissions in industrialized and developing countries the emissions data presented in this section is presented excluding emissions from forest fires. The reason for this is that it is difficult to assign these to be either man-made or from natural sources. Following the data in Figure 1, excluding forest fires emissions, global annual emissions of greenhouse gases increased from 24 billion tones of CO2-equivalents in 1970 to 41 billion tonnes in 2005. Although carbon dioxide showed the largest growth of 18% between 2000-2005, global anthropogenic emissions of methane and nitrous oxide also increased considerably (by 10% and 7% respectively), while emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases are shown to have increased by as much as 40%. Figure 2 presents the annual emissions of greenhouse gases in industrialized and developing countries in the period 1970-2005 in terms of emissions per year and expressed in emissions per capita. For completeness also the emissions from international aviation and international shipping are presented.
As shown in Figure 2, according to EDGAR v4.0 calculations man-made emissions in industrialized countries were about 19 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalents in the year 2005 starting from around 16 billion tonnes in 1970. New insights by the EDGAR project show that man-made emissions in developing countries show a 3-fold increase in emissions starting from 7 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent in 1970 to about 21 billion tonnes in 2005. These findings should be seen in perspective: average emissions per capita in developing countries are about 4 ton CO2-equivalents which is a significant less than the average 15 ton CO2-equivalents per capita in industrialized countries.
Countries with the largest emissions of greenhouse gases (1970-2005)
Table 1 present emission of greenhouse gases in the countries responsible for 80% of the global emissions in the year 2005 released into the atmosphere. The table presents emissions and trends for man-made emissions only, excluding short cycle CO2 such as combustion of wood fuel, agricultural waste burning, savannah burning and grassland fires. Since it is difficult to assign forest fire emissions as man-made or natural, emissions are reported as excluding LULUCF, followed by 5 years trends excluding LULUCF. For comparison the last column shows the emissions in 2005 including LULUCLF emissions to indicate that forest-fires and decay emissions have a significant impact on the emissions.
These results show that a large fraction of the global man-made greenhouse gas emissions are released into the atmosphere in China and the United States. The emissions from international shipping and international aviation contribute to approximately 2% of the global emissions. To illustrate emission trends in specific periods in the recent past, the ratios between 2005-2000, 2000-1995 and 1995-1990 are presented in Table 1. Emissions in China show an almost 60% increase in the period 2000-2005, while in the period 1995-2000 the increase was modest. Other countries with large growth rates over 2000-2005 are Indonesia, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The growth is most likely caused by increase fuel production activities in these countries. Of the largest emitting countries, only Germany, United Kingdom and the Ukraine are estimated to have lower emissions in 2005 compared to 1990.
Country |
2005 Excl. LULUCF (Pg CO2-eq.) |
Ratio 2005/2000 (excl. LULUCF) |
Ratio 2000/1995 (excl. LULUCF) |
Ratio 1995/1990 (excl. LULUCF) |
2005 Incl. LULUCF (Pg CO2-eq.) |
World total |
41.33 |
1.15 |
1.06 |
1.03 |
47.50 |
China |
8.55 |
1.59 |
1.06 |
1.32 |
8.55 |
United States of America |
7.08 |
1.02 |
1.09 |
1.05 |
7.10 |
Russian Federation |
2.44 |
1.07 |
0.96 |
0.72 |
2.48 |
India |
2.13 |
1.14 |
1.14 |
1.18 |
2.17 |
Japan |
1.65 |
1.04 |
1.02 |
1.06 |
1.65 |
Germany |
1.06 |
0.97 |
0.91 |
0.91 |
1.06 |
Brazil |
1.00 |
1.15 |
1.11 |
1.20 |
2.64 |
South Korea |
0.70 |
1.03 |
1.22 |
1.60 |
0.70 |
Canada |
0.70 |
1.03 |
1.09 |
1.11 |
0.75 |
Indonesia |
0.66 |
1.24 |
1.17 |
1.19 |
1.58 |
United Kingdom |
0.65 |
0.99 |
0.95 |
0.94 |
0.65 |
Mexico |
0.60 |
1.08 |
1.17 |
1.05 |
0.65 |
Australia |
0.59 |
1.05 |
1.19 |
1.03 |
0.61 |
Iran |
0.59 |
1.20 |
1.20 |
1.30 |
0.59 |
France |
0.58 |
1.01 |
1.03 |
0.97 |
0.58 |
Italy |
0.58 |
1.03 |
1.05 |
1.02 |
0.58 |
International shipping |
0.56 |
1.16 |
1.15 |
1.13 |
0.56 |
Ukraine |
0.53 |
0.98 |
0.86 |
0.59 |
0.53 |
South Africa |
0.46 |
1.15 |
1.06 |
1.06 |
0.46 |
Spain |
0.45 |
1.17 |
1.18 |
1.08 |
0.45 |
International aviation |
0.42 |
1.14 |
1.19 |
1.05 |
0.42 |
Poland |
0.38 |
1.01 |
0.85 |
0.95 |
0.38 |
Saudi Arabia |
0.36 |
1.23 |
1.20 |
1.27 |
0.36 |
1: excluding short cycle CO2 such as combustion of wood fuel, agricultural waste burning, and savannah burning. Excluding greenhouse gas emissions from grassland fires and forest fires.
2: excluding short cycle CO2 such as combustion of wood fuel, agricultural waste burning, and savannah burning and grassland fires. Including greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O) from forest fires.
Figure 3 shows the national man-made greenhouse gas emissions in ton CO2-equivalent per capita per country (excl. LULUCF). This shows that although countries like China, Brazil, India and Indonesia are large emitters according to Table 1, these countries are emitting less greenhouse gas emissions per capita than most of the industrial countries.
EDGAR as a reference database for the global scientific community
Previous versions of EDGAR have been widely used by the global scientific community since more than 15 years due to the consistent global coverage and the spatial allocation of country and sector emissions. In EDGARv4.0 emissions are spatially allocated on detailed geospatial maps (0.1 degree) using the exact location of energy and manufacturing facilities, road networks, shipping routes, human and animal population density and agricultural land use. The resolution of 0.1 degree has been selected so that local, regional and global models can use the same emission dataset. Increased possibilities to verify emissions are thus becoming available through the use of advanced modelling in combination with surface and satellite observations at different scales. Figure 4 illustrates the high resolution emissions data through representation of the global greenhouse gases in CO2-equivalents per grid cell.
Methodology and further information
Information on the methodology applied to calculate global greenhouse gas emissions 1970-2005 by world country and on 0.1 degree spatial grid is provided.
Detailed annual emissions by world country and on spatial grid for the period 1970-2005 are available for download.
EDGAR project team
John van Aardenne (JRC) project leader, Suvi Monni (JRC), Jos Olivier (PBL), Ulrike Doering (JRC), Lorenzo Orlandini (JRC), Valerio Pagliari (JRC), Jeroen Peters (PBL), Fulgencio Sanmartin (JRC), Greet Maenhout (JRC).
Contact information
edgar-info(at)jrc.ec.europa.eu
European Commission - JRC Joint Research Centre, IES Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Climate Change Unit, TP 290, I-21020, Ispra (Va), Italy.