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Indicator Specification
Anthropogenic emissions of the main air pollutants — SOx, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), NH3, NMVOCs, PM and methane (CH4) — contribute to air quality problems in Europe. The consequences are adverse health effects caused particularly by PM, ground-level ozone (O3) and NO2. PM can be emitted directly into the air (so-called primary PM) or it can be formed in the atmosphere (so-called secondary PM) from airborne precursor substances. NO2, NMVOCs and CH4 are precursors of ozone, which is created in the atmosphere via photo-chemical reactions and contributes to the formation of secondary PM. Ground-level ozone not only has negative effects on human health, but also on crops and natural ecosystems. Excess deposition of sulphur and nitrogen compounds can lead to disturbances in the functioning and structure of ecosystems, i.e. causing acidification of soils and waters as well as, in the case of nitrogen, eutrophication in nutrient-poor ecosystems such as grasslands.
A more detailed summary of the effects of air pollution on human health and ecosystems is included in the EEA’s indicators 'Exceedance of air quality limit values in urban areas' (CSI 004) and 'Exposure of ecosystems to acidification, eutrophication and ozone' (CSI 005).
This indicator supports the assessment of progress towards meeting the national emission ceilings under the EU’s NEC Directive (2016/2284/EU) and the Gothenburg Protocol under the 1979 LRTAP Convention (see, for example, EEA, 2016a, and EEA, 2016b). The Gothenburg Protocol of 1999 was amended in 2012 (UNECE, 2012).
This indicator tracks trends since 1990 in anthropogenic emissions of the main air pollutants — NOx, NH3, SOx and NMVOCs. The indicator further tracks trends since 2000 in anthropogenic emissions of PM with a diameter of up to 2.5 μm (i.e. PM2.5) emitted directly into the air (primary PM). All named pollutants have direct or indirect negative effects on human health, vegetation or ecosystems.
The indicator also provides information on emissions by sector, addressing the following source aggregations:
Geographically, the indicator covers the EU-28 and EEA-33 countries. The EEA-33 countries include the EU-28 countries (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) plus European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) and Turkey.
The total emissions per country are given in gigagrams (Gg; i.e. 1 000 tonnes). The aggregated sector contributions for the emissions of each main pollutant are given in percentages (%).
Current EU air pollution policy is underpinned by the objectives and long-term goals of e.g. the Sixth Environment Action Programme (6EAP; EC, 2002) (covering the 2002–2012 period) to further reduce air pollution and its impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity by 2020, i.e. to attain 'levels of air quality that do not give rise to significant negative impacts on, and risks to, human health and the environment'. This goal has been reinforced in the Seventh Environment Action Programme (7th EAP), which will run until 2020 (EU, 2013). To move towards achieving the TSAP objectives, EU air pollution legislation has followed a twin-track approach of implementing both emission mitigation controls and air‑quality standards. A new strategy, the Clean Air Programme for Europe, was proposed by the European Commission at the end of 2013 (EU, 2013).
Internationally, the 1979 UNECE LRTAP Convention (UNECE, 1979) was a first step towards addressing the impacts of air pollution on health and the environment. A centrepiece of the convention is the 1999 ‘Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-level Ozone’, subsequently amended in 2012 (UNECE, 2012). The amended protocol sets emission ceilings (limits) for the year 2010 and national emission reduction commitments for the emission of the main air pollutants, namely SOx, NOx, NH3 and NMVOCs. It also includes reduction commitments for PM2.5 emissions for 2020. Under the protocol, the critical loads concept was established as a tool for informing political discussions related to damage to sensitive ecosystems (see CSI 005). Critical ozone levels (concentrations) for vegetation were also defined under the LRTAP Convention.
The 1999 Gothenburg Protocol was followed in 2001 by the EU's NECD which has since been repealed by a revised NEC Directive in 2016 (EU, 2016). The original directive introduced legally binding national emission limits for four main air pollutants: SO2, NOx, NH3 and NMVOCs. The directive requires EU Member States to have met emission ceilings by 2010 and in the years thereafter, with emission reduction commitments established for 2020 and 2030 for the four main pollutants and PM2.5. The goal is to comply with the amended Gothenburg Protocol by 2020, followed by more ambitious reductions from 2030 onwards. The human health and environmental objectives defined in the NECD, the Gothenburg Protocol and the EU’s Air Quality Directive (EU, 2008a) are addressed by indicators CSI004 and CSI005.
Regulation addressing ambient air concentrations
The European directives currently regulating the ambient air concentrations of the main pollutants are designed to avoid, prevent or reduce the harmful effects of air pollutants on human health and the environment by implementing limit or target values for ambient concentrations of air pollutants. They are:
In the case of non-compliance with the air quality limit and target values stipulated in European legislation, air quality management plans must be developed and implemented in the areas in which exceedances occur. These plans should aim to bring concentrations of air pollutants to levels below the limit and target values. To ensure overall coherence, and consistency between different policies, air quality plans should be consistent (if feasible) and integrated with plans and programmes in line with the directives regulating air pollutant emissions.
Legal instruments at European level that address emissions directly or indirectly
Source-specific EU legislation focuses on industrial emissions, road and off-road vehicle emissions, fuel quality standards, etc., by setting emission standards, requiring the use of best-available technology or setting requirements on fuel composition. In addition, several legal instruments are used to reduce environmental impacts from different activities or to promote environmentally friendly behaviour, and these also contribute indirectly to reducing air pollution, as summarised below.
End-of-pipe control in industrial installations:
Emission standards for cars:
Handling and storage:
Fuel quality:
International shipping:
In addition to the policy instruments outlined above, there are several EU directives that also contribute indirectly to efforts to minimise air pollution. These directives are intended to reduce environmental impacts, including on climate change, and/or to promote environmentally friendly behaviour. Some examples are outlined below.
Agriculture:
Energy taxation:
Ecodesign:
National Emission Ceilings Directive (2001/81/EC)
The NECD (EU, 2001) sets pollutant-specific and legally binding emission ceilings for NOx, NMVOCs, SOx and NH3 for each EU Member State. The directive requires Member States to have met the ceilings and interim environmental objectives by 2010 and in the years thereafter (EEA, 2019). The directive sets specific environmental objectives that address the impacts of acidification and eutrophication on ecosystems, and the harmful effects of ozone on vegetation and human health (see CSI 005).
The NECD was reviewed as part of the Clean Air Policy Package. In December 2016, the Council adopted the new directive and reporting under this directive already started in February 2017. The new directive repeals and replaces the current EU regime on the annual capping of national emissions of air pollutants, as defined in Directive 2001/81/EC. By doing so, it ensures that the national emission ceilings (NECs) set in the current NECD (2001/81/EC) for 2010 onwards for SOx, NOx, NMVOCs and NH3 shall apply until 2020, and it establishes new national emission 'reduction commitments', which are applicable from 2020 and from 2030, for SOx, NOx, NMVOCs, NH3 and PM2.5. The reduction commitments are binding for the period from 2020 to 2029 and from 2030 onwards. In principle, the commitments are indicative for 2025 by a linear emission reduction trajectory. A non-linear reduction trajectory is permissible if it is economically and technically more efficient, and provided that, from 2025, it progressively converges with the linear reduction trajectory.
UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution Gothenburg Protocol (1999; amended in 2012)
The amended Gothenburg Protocol sets national ceilings (limits) for the emission of the main air pollutants, namely SOx, NOx, NH3, NMVOCs and primary PM2.5 (UNECE, 2012). The EU as a whole has ratified the protocol, and reports EU emissions to the UNECE (EEA, 2016b).
The target under the amended protocol (UNECE, 2012) is to ensure that — in the long term and using a stepwise approach that takes into account advances in scientific knowledge — atmospheric depositions or concentrations do not exceed critical loads for the nutrient nitrogen (see CSI 005). Critical levels for the protection of crops (AOT40c) and for the protection of forests (AOT40f) have also been defined under the LRTAP Convention, and the critical level for crops is consistent with the EU long-term objective for vegetation (see CSI 005).
The 2010 targets under the NECD and Gothenburg Protocol are included in the EEA’s NEC data viewer and the LRTAP data viewer.
This indicator is based on national total and sectoral emissions officially reported to the EEA and the UNECE 'Co-operative programme for monitoring and evaluation of the long-range transmissions of air pollutants in Europe' (EMEP) LRTAP Convention. For the EU-28 Member States, the data used are consistent with the emission data reported by the EU in its annual submission to the LRTAP Convention.
Recommended methodologies for emission inventory estimation are compiled in the EMEP/EEA Air Pollutant Emission Inventory Guidebook (EMEP/EEA, 2016). Base data are available from the EEA Data Service and the EMEP website (Centre on Emission Inventories and Projections (CEIP)). Where necessary, gaps in reported data are filled by the European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change using simple interpolation techniques (see below). The final gap-filled data used in this indicator are available from the EEA’s LRTAP data viewer.
Base data, reported in the UNECE/EMEP nomenclature for reporting (NFR) sector format, are aggregated into the following EEA sector codes to obtain a consistent reporting format across all countries and pollutants:
The following table shows the conversion of nomenclature for reporting (NFR14) sector codes used for reporting by countries into EEA sector codes:
EEA classification |
Non-greenhouse gases (GHGs; NFR14) |
|
National totals |
National total |
|
Energy production and distribution |
1A1, 1A3e, 1B |
|
Energy use in industry |
1A2 |
|
Road transport |
1A3b |
|
Non-road transport (non-road mobile machinery) |
1A3 (exl 1A3b) |
|
Industrial processes and product use |
2 |
|
|
|
|
Agriculture |
3 |
|
Waste |
5 |
|
Commercial, institutional and households |
1A4ai, 1A4aii, 1A4bi, 1A4bii, 1A4ci, 1A4cii, 1A5a, 1A5b |
|
Other |
7 |
An improved gap-filling methodology was implemented in 2010 that enables a complete time-series trend for the main air pollutants (e.g. NOx, SOx, NMVOCs, NH3 and CO) to be compiled. In cases in which countries did not report emissions for any year, gap-filling could not be applied. For these pollutants, therefore, the aggregated data are not yet complete and are likely to underestimate true emissions. Further methodological details of the gap-filling procedure are provided in section 'Data gaps and gap-filling' of the European Union emission inventory report 1990–2017 under the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) (EEA, 2019).
The use of a gap-filling methodology for countries that have not reported emissions for one or more years can potentially lead to artificial trends, but it is considered unavoidable if a comprehensive and comparable set of emission data for European countries is required for policy analysis purposes.
NOx emission estimates in Europe are thought to have an uncertainty of about ±20 % (EMEP (2010), as the NOx emitted is from both the fuel burnt and the combustion of air and so cannot be estimated accurately from fuel nitrogen alone. However, because of the need for interpolation to account for missing data, the complete data set used will have a higher degree of uncertainty. The overall trend is likely to be more accurate than individual absolute annual values — the annual values are not independent of each other.
Overall scoring (1–3; 1 = no major problems, 3 = major reservations):
SOx emission estimates in Europe are thought to have an uncertainty of about ±10 %, as the sulphur comes from only the fuel burnt and therefore can be more accurately estimated than emissions of NOx. However, because of the need for interpolation to account for missing data, the complete data set used will have a higher degree of uncertainty. EMEP has compared modelled and measured concentrations throughout Europe (EMEP, 2010). From these studies, differences in the annual averages have been estimated to be ±30 %, which is consistent with an inventory uncertainty of ±10 % (there are also uncertainties in the measurements and especially the modelling). The trend is likely to be much more accurate than individual absolute values.
Overall scoring (1–3; 1 = no major problems, 3 = major reservations):
NH3 emission estimates in Europe are more uncertain than those for NOx, SOx and NMVOCs, largely because of the diverse nature of major agricultural sources. It is estimated that they have an uncertainty of around ±30 % (EMEP, 2009). The overall trend is likely to be more accurate than the individual absolute annual values — the annual values are not independent of each other.
Overall scoring (1–3; 1 = no major problems, 3 = major reservations):
This indicator is regularly updated by the EEA and is used in state of the environment assessments. The uncertainties related to methodology and data sets are therefore important.
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For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/main-anthropogenic-air-pollutant-emissions or scan the QR code.
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