A comprehensive and synthetic dataset for global, regional, and national greenhouse gas emissions by sector 1970–2018 with an extension to 2019

Journal Article · Wed Nov 10 00:00:00 EST 2021 · Earth System Science Data (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-5213-2021· OSTI ID:1833036

Minx, Jan C.  ^[1]; Lamb, William F.  ^[1]; Andrew, Robbie M.  ^[2]; Canadell, Josep G.  ^[3]; Crippa, Monica ^[4]; Döbbeling, Niklas ^[5]; Forster, Piers M. ^[6]; Guizzardi, Diego ^[4]; Olivier, Jos ^[7]; Peters, Glen P.  ^[2]; Pongratz, Julia  ^[8]; Reisinger, Andy ^[9]; Rigby, Matthew  ^[10]; Saunois, Marielle ^[11]; Smith, Steven J.  ^[12]; Solazzo, Efisio  ^[4]; Tian, Hanqin  ^[13]

---

1. Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin (Germany); Univ. of Leeds, Leeds (United Kingdom)
2. CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo (Norway)
3. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Canberra, ACT (Australia)
4. European Commission, Ispra (Italy). Joint Research Centre
5. Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, Berlin (Germany)
6. Univ. of Leeds, Leeds (United Kingdom)
7. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague (Netherlands)
8. Ludwig Maximilian Univ. of Munich, Munich (Germany); Max Planck Inst. for Meteorology, Hamburg (Germany)
9. Australian National Univ., Canberra, ACT (Australia)
10. Bristol Univ. (United Kingdom)
11. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
12. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
13. Auburn Univ., AL (United States)

To track progress towards keeping global warming well below 2 °C or even 1.5 °C, as agreed in the Paris Agreement, comprehensive up-to-date and reliable information on anthropogenic emissions and removals of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is required. Here we compile a new synthetic dataset on anthropogenic GHG emissions for 1970–2018 with a fast-track extension to 2019. Our dataset is global in coverage and includes CO₂ emissions, CH₄ emissions, N₂O emissions, as well as those from fluorinated gases (F-gases: HFCs, PFCs, SF₆, NF₃) and provides country and sector details. We build this dataset from the version 6 release of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR v6) and three bookkeeping models for CO₂ emissions from land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF). We assess the uncertainties of global greenhouse gases at the 90 % confidence interval (5th–95th percentile range) by combining statistical analysis and comparisons of global emissions inventories and top-down atmospheric measurements with an expert judgement informed by the relevant scientific literature. We identify important data gaps for F-gas emissions. The agreement between our bottom-up inventory estimates and top-down atmospheric-based emissions estimates is relatively close for some F-gas species (~ 10 % or less), but estimates can differ by an order of magnitude or more for others. Our aggregated F-gas estimate is about 10 % lower than top-down estimates in recent years. However, emissions from excluded F-gas species such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are cumulatively larger than the sum of the reported species. Using global warming potential values with a 100-year time horizon from the Sixth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global GHG emissions in 2018 amounted to 58 ± 6.1 GtCO₂ eq. consisting of CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion and industry (FFI) 38 ± 3.0 GtCO₂, CO₂-LULUCF 5.7 ± 4.0 GtCO₂, CH₄ 10 ± 3.1 GtCO₂ eq., N2O 2.6 ± 1.6 GtCO₂ eq., and F-gases 1.3 ± 0.40 GtCO₂ eq. Initial estimates suggest further growth of 1.3 GtCO₂ eq. in GHG emissions to reach 59 ± 6.6 GtCO₂ eq. by 2019. Our analysis of global trends in anthropogenic GHG emissions over the past 5 decades (1970–2018) highlights a pattern of varied but sustained emissions growth. There is high confidence that global anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased every decade, and emissions growth has been persistent across the different (groups of) gases. There is also high confidence that global anthropogenic GHG emissions levels were higher in 2009–2018 than in any previous decade and that GHG emissions levels grew throughout the most recent decade. While the average annual GHG emissions growth rate slowed between 2009 and 2018 (1.2 % yr^–1) compared to 2000–2009 (2.4 % yr^–1), the absolute increase in average annual GHG emissions by decade was never larger than between 2000–2009 and 2009–2018. Our analysis further reveals that there are no global sectors that show sustained reductions in GHG emissions. There are a number of countries that have reduced GHG emissions over the past decade, but these reductions are comparatively modest and outgrown by much larger emissions growth in some developing countries such as China, India, and Indonesia. There is a need to further develop independent, robust, and timely emissions estimates across all gases. As such, tracking progress in climate policy requires substantial investments in independent GHG emissions accounting and monitoring as well as in national and international statistical infrastructures. The data associated with this article (Minx et al., 2021) can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5566761.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF); European Commission (EC); National Science Foundation (NSF); UK Natural Environment Research Council
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830; 01LG1910A; 820829; 776810; 958927; 1903722; NE/N016548/1; NE/M014851/1; NE/I021365/1
• OSTI ID: 1833036
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-166102
• Journal Information: Earth System Science Data (Online), Vol. 13, Issue 11; ISSN 1866-3516
• Publisher: Copernicus Publications
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES