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Indicator Assessment
Total EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions in 2003 were 1.7 % below base year levels. Increases in carbon dioxide emissions were offset by reductions in nitrous oxide, methane and fluorinated gas emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions from road transport increased whereas emissions from manufacturing industry decreased.
Total EU-15 GHG emissions (including Kyoto Protocol flexible mechanisms) in 2003 were 1.9 index points above the hypothetical linear EU target path. Many EU-15 Member States were not on track to meet their burden-sharing targets. Total GHG emissions in the new Member States decreased considerably (by 32.2 %) between the aggregate base year and 2003, due mainly to the economic restructuring transition process towards market economies. Most new EU Member States are on track to meet their Kyoto targets.
EU-15 GHG emissions have shown a small decrease between base year and 2003 of 1.7%, despite increases in GDP.
Sources and sectors with increasing emissions:
Sources and sectors with decreasing emissions:
In new Member States, CO2 is the most important GHG (82.7% of total emissions) and it was reduced by 31.7 % between 1990 and 2003. Second is CH4 (share 9.8 %, decrease 40 %) and third is N2O (share 7.1 %, decrease 28 %). Compared to the base year, emissions of all of these gases decreased significantly. The share of F-gases is 0.4 %. These emissions have been increasing since 1990 (+74 %), but there are still countries which do not report F-gases.
This indicator presents anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in Europe from 1990 onwards. It analyses the trends (total and by sector) in relation to the European Community and Member States Kyoto targets for the period 2008-2012.
Emissions: the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time.
Greenhouse gases: those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and re-emit infrared radiation.
Sink: any process, activity or mechanism which removes a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.
Source: any process or activity which releases a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
Emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases are calculated according to the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (see Methodology), as agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.
Gases
All the greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol (CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, HFCs and PFCs). This does not include the greenhouse gases that are also ozone-depleting substances and which are controlled by the Montreal Protocol (see CSI 006).
In order to be aggregated, non-CO2 gases are weighed by their respective global warming potential and presented in CO2-equivalent units.
Emission sources
The indicator provides information on emissions from the main anthropogenic greenhouse gas sources, distributed by main emitting sectors (according IPCC nomenclature):
Unless otherwise mentioned, the indicator does not cover emissions from international bunkers (international aviation and maritime transport), which are not covered by the Kyoto Protocol. In particular, these emissions are not taken into account in the total greenhouse gas emissions reported at national and EU levels.
Emissions from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) are not included in total greenhouse gas emissions.
Geographical area
The indicator covers all 27 Member States from the European Union. Some figures also include information concerning other EEA Member States.
Period covered
The indicator covers annual emissions since 1990.
Greenhouse gas emissions are expressed in 'million tonnes CO2-equivalent' (Mt CO2-eq.)
The present indicator CSI 010 aims to support the European Commission's annual assessment of progress in reducing emissions in the EU and the individual Member States to achieve the Kyoto Protocol targets under the EU Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism (Council Decision 280/2004/EC concerning a mechanism for monitoring Community GHG emissions and for implementing the Kyoto Protocol).
Background
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) sets an ultimate objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations 'at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system.' It also requires precise and regularly updated inventories of greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries. With a few exceptions, the 'base year' for tabulating greenhouse gas emissions has been set as 1990.
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the UNFCCC which sets binding targets for industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. (See next section).
The European Community (EC), as a party to the UNFCCC, reports annually on the greenhouse gas emissions within the area covered by its Member States. The Annual European Community greenhouse gas inventory and inventory report, officially submitted to the UNFCCC Secretariat, is prepared on behalf of the European Commission (DG Environment) by the European Environment Agency's European Topic Centre for Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC) supported by the Joint Research Centre and Eurostat.
The legal basis of the compilation of the EC inventory is Council Decision No 280/2004/EC concerning a mechanism for monitoring Community greenhouse gas emissions and for implementing the Kyoto Protocol. The purpose of this decision is to:
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU-15 has taken on a common commitment to reducing emissions by 8 % on average between 2008 and 2012, compared to base-year emissions.
Within this overall target, differentiated emission limitation or reduction targets have been agreed for each of the 15 pre-2004 Member States under an EU accord known as the 'burden-sharing agreement'. These targets are set out in the Annex II to the Council Decision 2002/358/EC concerning the approval, on behalf of the European Community, of the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC and the joint fulfilment of commitments thereunder.
The EU-12 Member States (apart from Cyprus and Malta) have individual targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia have reduction targets of 8 % from the base year, while Hungary and Poland have reduction targets of 6 %.
Of the additional EEA member countries, Norway and Iceland are allowed to increase emissions under the Kyoto Protocol by 1 % and 10 %, respectively, from their base-year emissions. Switzerland and Liechtenstein have reduction targets of 8 %. Turkey is a Party to the UNFCCC, but not to the Kyoto Protocol and therefore has no reduction target. Croatia, an EU candidate country which started accession negotiations with the EU in 2005, ratified the Kyoto Protocol in May 2007 and has a reduction target of 5 %.
Base year
Under the Kyoto Protocol, the greenhouse gas emission level in the base year is the relevant starting point for tracking progress. For most EU Member States, the base year is 1990 for carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), and 1995 for fluorinated gases (SF6, HFCs and PFCs). Five of the new Member States have base years or periods under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol that differ from 1990 for CO2, CH4 and N2O, which is possible for economies in transition.
National Kyoto or burden-sharing targets (reduction from base-year levels)
Country | Kyoto Target 2008-2012 |
---|---|
Austria | -13% |
Belgium | -7.5% |
Bulgaria [1] | -8.0% |
Croatia | -5.0% |
Czech Republic | -8.0% |
Cyprus | - |
Denmark [2] | -21.0% |
Estonia | -8.0% |
Finland | 0% |
France | 0% |
Germany | -21.0% |
Greece | +25.0% |
Hungary [3] | -6.0% |
Iceland | -10.0% |
Ireland | +13.0% |
Italy | -6.5% |
Latvia | -8.0% |
Liechtenstein | -8.0% |
Lithuania | -8.0% |
Luxembourg | -28.0% |
Malta | - |
Netherlands | -6.0% |
Norway | 1.0% |
Poland [4] | -6.0% |
Portugal | +27.0% |
Romania [5] | -8.0% |
Slovakia | -8.0% |
Slovenia [6] | -8.0% |
Spain | +15.0% |
Sweden | +4.0% |
Turkey | - |
United Kingdom | -12.5% |
EU-15 (pre-2004 EU Member States) | -8.0% |
[1] The base year for Bulgaria is 1988.
[2] In Commission Decision 2006/944/EC determining the respective emission levels allocated to the Community and each of its Member States under the Kyoto Protocol, the respective emission levels were expressed in terms of tonnes of CO2-equivalent. In connection with Council Decision 2002/358/EC, the Council of Environment Ministers and the Commission have, in a joint statement, agreed to take into account inter alia the assumptions in Denmark's statement to the Council Conclusions of 16-17 June 1998 relating to base-year emissions in 2006. In 2006, it was decided to postpone a decision on this until after all Community and Member State initial reports have been reviewed under the Kyoto Protocol.
[3] The base year for Hungary is the average of 1985-1987.
[4] The base year for Poland is 1988.
[5] The base year for Romania is 1989.
[6] The base year for Slovenia is 1986.
Detailed information on base-year levels is available from EEA report on greenhouse gas emissions trends and projections in Europe.
The UNFCCC requires precise and regularly updated inventories of greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized countries, using comparable methodologies. To estimate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, all countries must use the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
In order to be agregated into one single figure, emissions of the different individual gases are translated into CO2 equivalents, using global warming potentials (GWP) as provided in the IPCC guidelines. GWP are a measure of how much a given mass of greenhouse gas is estimated to contribute to global warming.
Gas | Global warming potential (GWP) |
---|---|
carbon dioxine | 1 |
methane | 21 |
nitrous oxide | 310 |
sulphur hexafluoride | 23900 |
All total emissions exclude greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities.
The EC GHG inventory is compiled by using the inventory submissions of the EC Member States. If a Member State does not submit all data required for the compilation of the EC inventory, estimates for data missing for that Member State are made. In the following cases gap filling is made:
For data gaps in Member States’ inventory submissions, a gap-filling procedure is applied in accordance with the implementing provisions under Council Decision No 280/2004/EC for missing emission data. The methods used for gap filling include interpolation, extrapolation and clustering. These methods are consistent with the adjustment methods described in UNFCCC Adjustment Guidelines and in the IPCC GPG 2000.
No methodology references available.
Methodologies to estimate greenhouse gas emissions and removals
Difference of methodologies between countries
Since Member States use different national methodologies, national activity data or country-specificemission factors in accordance with IPCC and UNFCCC guidelines, these methodologies are reflected in the EC GHG inventory data. The EC believes that it is consistent with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines and the IPCC good practice guidelines to use different methodologies for one source category across the EC especially if this helps to reduce uncertainty and improve consistency of the emissions data provided that each methodology is consistent with the IPCC good practice guidelines.
GWP
The IPCC suggests that the uncertainty in the total GWP weighted emission estimates, for most European countries, is likely to be better than +/- 20%. While uncertainties in the estimates of the non-CO2 gases are larger than this, the dominance of CO2, with a much lower uncertainty than 20%, in the GWP emissions results in the overall uncertainty of 20%.
Evaluation
The EEA uses data officially submitted by EU Member States and other EEA countries which perform their own assessment into uncertainty of reported data. In accordance with UNFCCC guidelines, the EC and its Member States use the IPCC Good practice guidance and uncertainty management in national greenhouse gas inventories, which is consistent with the Revised 1996 IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. The use of this good practice guidance by countries is expected to lead to higher quality inventories and more reliable estimates of the magnitude of absolute and trend uncertainties in reported GHG inventories.
The annual EC GHG inventory report provides a section (1.7) on uncertainty evaluation. The results suggest that uncertainties at EU-15 level are between +/- 4% and 8% for total EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions. N2O emissions of agriculture soils is the source contributing most to the overall uncertainty of the EC inventory.
TrendsTotal EU-27 and EU-15 GHG emission trends are likely to be more accurate than the individual absolute annual emission estimates, because the annual values are not independent of each other. The IPCC suggests that the uncertainty in total GHG emission trends is ~ 4 to 5%. The total GHG emission estimates are quite reliable and the limited number of interpolations used to build the indicator do not introduce much uncertainty at the EU level.
According to the latest scientific evidence available (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report 'Climate Change 2007'):
Words in bold represent calibrated expressions of uncertainty and confidence. Relevant terms are explained in the Box 'Treatment of uncertainty' in the Introduction of the AR4 Synthesis Report. In particular, a likelihood 'very likely' corresponds to a probability of occurence higher than 90 %. This uncertainty in specific outcomes is assessed using expert judgment and statistical analysis of a body of evidence (e.g. observations or model results).
The high confidence in the responsibility of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions for the warming of the climate system reemphasizes the relevance of monitoring and assessing greenhouse gas emission trends in Europe.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/greenhouse-gas-emission-trends/greenhouse-gas-emission-trends-assessment or scan the QR code.
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