All official European Union website addresses are in the europa.eu domain.
See all EU institutions and bodiesDo something for our planet, print this page only if needed. Even a small action can make an enormous difference when millions of people do it!
Indicator Assessment
[1] Emissions data reported by EU member states under NECD is used for comparison with NECD ceilings, while data reported under CLRTAP is used for all other calculations unless otherwise stated.
EEA-33 NOX emissions have decreased by 44% between 1990 and 2011. The majority of EEA-33 countries reported lower emissions of NOX in 2011 compared to 1990. The exceptions to this are Turkey (whose emissions were two times higher in 2011 than in 1990), Cyprus (24% higher), Luxembourg (24%) and Malta (4%).
The recession, and subsequent economic slow-down, that commenced mid-2008 was a key driver in the reduction of NOX emissions between 2007 and 2011, primarily due to reductions in the level of industrial and transport activities across Europe. Total emissions were reduced by 17% between these years, compared to a 7% reduction between 2003 and 2007.
In general, the newer Member States of the European Union have made better progress towards meeting their respective 2010 NOX ceilings than the older EU-15 Member States. All of the EU-13 Member States, which joined between 2004 and 2013, have reduced emissions beyond what is required under the NECD. In contrast, only eight EU-15 Member States had 2011 emissions below their respective national ceilings.
Despite this difference both EU-15 and New EU-13 groups have achieved broadly similar reductions in NOX emissions since 1990, of 49.1% and 48.7% respectively. However NECD ceilings for the groups are markedly different, representing reductions from 1990 emissions of 52% and 31% respectively. This difference is reflected less in the revised Gothenburg Protocol, under which the EU-15 and EU-13 groups are expected to achieve reductions of 44% and 35% respectively from 2005 levels of emissions.
As noted above, emissions have actually increased in four EEA-33 countries during the period 1990-2011, despite all countries having obligations to reduce emissions under the NECD and Gothenburg Protocol. Since 2005, however, emissions have fallen in all but one of these countries, indicating that by 2011 some progress had been made in moving towards their NECD ceiling directive limits.
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey are not members of the European Union and hence have no emission ceilings set under the NECD. However, Norway and Switzerland have ratified the UNECE LRTAP Convention's Gothenburg Protocol, requiring them to reduce their emissions to the agreed ceiling specified in the protocol by 2010. Liechtenstein has also signed, but not ratified the protocol. While Switzerland has reported emissions in 2011 that were lower than their ceiling, neither Liechtenstein nor Norway has yet met their national ceilings, and thus must still make significant reductions if they are to ensure compliance.
The revision of the National Emission Ceilings Directive 2001/81/EC (NECD) is part of the implementation of the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution. The proposal to amend the NECD is still under preparation and should set emission ceilings to be respected by 2020 for the four already regulated substances (NOX, NMVOC, SOX and NH3), as well as for the primary emissions of PM2.5. A revision of the Gothenburg protocol was published in June 2012 and proposed percentage emission reductions from 2005 levels to be met by 2020 for the four already regulated substances and primary emissions of PM2.5. Existing emission ceilings for 2010 have been extended to 2020 such that all countries have additional obligations to maintain emission levels below their 2010 ceilings, or to further reduce emissions if they have not yet met these ceilings.
Emissions reported for 2011 indicate that the majority of Member States are on track towards meeting their proposed 2020 emission reduction targets under the revised Gothenburg protocol. Eight countries reported 2011 emissions higher than the linear path to their 2020 targets, however, for five of these the difference was less than 10% of 2005 emissions.
Reductions of NOX emissions have occurred in all economic sectors during this period. The sectors responsible for the vast majority of the decline in NOX emissions are 'Road transport' (contributing 47% of the total reduction in NOX emissions reported by countries) and 'Energy production and distribution' (contributing 27%).
Significant reductions have occurred in the 'Road transport' sector since the early 1990s, with a 48% overall decline in reported emissions between 1990 and 2011. This has been achieved despite the general increase in transport activity within this sector over the period. The emission reductions have primarily been achieved as a result of fitting catalysts to vehicles (driven by the legislative 'Euro' standards). However, across Europe there is also an increasing awareness of the contribution made to NOX pollutant emissions by national and international ship traffic (a more detailed discussion of this issue is contained in the TERM indicator fact sheet TERM03 - Transport emissions of air pollutants).
Although the largest reduction of emissions in absolute terms since 1990 has occurred in the road transport sector, ambient urban concentrations of NO2 in EU-28 countries in recent years have not fallen by as much as reported emissions. From 2001 to 2010, NO2 annual mean concentrations at urban background sites fell by just 10.6% on average (CSI004 - Fig 5), during which time the reported NOX emissions for the EU-28 decreased by 29.5%. The disparity between trends in NOX emissions and ambient NO2 concentrations is due in part to increased penetration of diesel vehicles, and the ‘real-world’ emission performance of modern diesel vehicles not showing the improvements that were indicated by the test cycle emission factors used for emission inventories. The disparity is also due to the increased proportion of NOX emitted directly as NO2 from the exhausts of more modern diesel vehicles, which use catalyst systems for controlling emissions of other pollutants.
Emissions of NOX have also declined in the 'Energy production and distribution' sector (by 48% between 1990 and 2011). This has been achieved through the implementation of measures such as combustion modification, introduction of flue-gas abatement techniques and fuel-switching from coal to gas. One of the most common forms of combustion modification is to use low NOX burners, which typically can reduce NOX emissions by up to 40%. Flue gas treatment techniques (such as NOX scrubbers, selective catalytic or non-catalytic reduction techniques - SCR and SNCR) can also be used to remove NOX from the flue gases. Emissions of NOX are higher from coal-fired power plants than from gas-fired plants as the coal contains significant amounts of nitrogen (unlike gas) and is burnt in less efficient combustion processes.
The newer Member States of the European Union have, in a number of cases, also undergone significant economic structural changes since the early 1990s, which has led to a general decline in certain activities that previously contributed to high levels of NOX emissions e.g. heavy industry and the closure of older, less efficient, power plants, and replacement of old vehicles with newer vehicles that meet Euro standards.
kilotonnes (1000 tonnes)
Emissions of NOX are covered by the EU National Emission Ceilings Directive (NECD) (2001/81/EC) and the Gothenburg protocol under the United Nations Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention) (UNECE 1999). The NECD generally involves slightly stricter emission reduction targets than the Gothenburg Protocol for EU-15 countries for the period 1990-2010. The Gothenburg Protocol entered into force on 17 May 2005, after ratification by 16 countries early in 2005. The 2012 revision to the Gothenburg protocol proposed emission reduction targets for 2020 relative to 2005 reported emissions for all EU-27 Member States and some EEA-32 non-EU member states.
Table: 2010 NOX ceilings under the NEC Directive and the Gothenburg Protocol (kt)
Country |
2010 NECD |
2010 CLRTAP Gothenburg Protocol ceilings |
2020 CLRTAP Gothenburg Protocol ceilings |
Austria | 103 | 107 | 149 |
Belgium | 176 | 181 | 172 |
Bulgaria | 247 | 266 | 91 |
Cyprus | 23 | N/A | 12 |
Czech Republic | 286 | 286 | 181 |
Denmark | 127 | 127 | 80 |
Estonia | 60 | N/A | 30 |
Finland | 170 | 170 | 110 |
France | 810 | 860 | 715 |
Germany | 1051 | 1081 | 963 |
Greece | 344 | 344 | 289 |
Hungary | 198 | 198 | 134 |
Iceland* | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Ireland | 65 | 65 | 65 |
Italy | 990 | 1000 | 727 |
Latvia | 61 | 84 | 25 |
Liechtenstein | N/A | 0.37 | N/A |
Lithuania | 110 | 110 | 29 |
Luxembourg | 11 | 11 | 35 |
Malta | 8 | N/A | 5 |
Netherlands | 260 | 266 | 190 |
Norway | N/A | 156 | 154 |
Poland | 879 | 879 | 606 |
Portugal | 250 | 260 | 167 |
Romania | 437 | 437 | 170 |
Slovakia | 130 | 130 | 65 |
Slovenia | 45 | 45 | 28 |
Spain | 847 | 847 | 827 |
Switzerland | N/A | 79 | 55 |
Sweden | 148 | 148 | 111 |
Turkey* | N/A | N/A | N/A |
United Kingdom | 1167 | 1181 | 711 |
* Iceland and Turkey do not have a ceiling under the NEC Directive or the Gothenburg protocol.
This indicator is based on officially reported national total and sectoral emissions to the EEA and the UNECE/EMEP (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe/Co-operative programme for monitoring and evaluation of the long-range transmission of air pollutants in Europe) Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention), submission 2011. For the EU-27 Member States, the data used is consistent with the emissions 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, 2009). Base data are available from the EEA Data Service (http://dataservice.eea.europa.eu/dataservice/metadetails.asp?id=1096) and the EMEP web site (http://www.ceip.at/). Where necessary, gaps in reported data are filled by European Topic Centre/EEA using simple interpolation techniques (see below). The final gap-filled data used in this indicator are available from the EEA Data Service (http://dataservice.eea.europa.eu/PivotApp/pivot.aspx?pivotid=478)
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 (NFR) sector codes used for reporting by countries into EEA sector codes:
EEA classification |
Non-GHGs (NFR) |
|
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 (excl. 1A3b) |
|
Industrial processes |
2 |
|
Solvent and product use |
3 |
|
Agriculture |
4 |
|
Waste |
6 |
|
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 (eg NOX, SOX, NMVOC, NH3 and CO) to be compiled. In cases where countries did not report emissions for any year, it meant that gap-filling could not be applied. For these pollutants, therefore, the aggregated data is not yet complete and is likely to underestimate true emissions. Further methodological details of the gap-filling procedure are provided in section 1.4.2 'Data gaps and gap-filling' of the European Union emission inventory report 1990–2009 under the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP).
No methodology references available.
The use of gap-filling when countries have not reported emissions for one of more years can potentially lead to artificial trends, but it is considered unavoidable if a comprehensive and comparable set of emissions data for European countries is required for policy analysis purposes.
NOX emissions estimates in Europe are thought to have an uncertainty of about ±20% (EMEP, 2010), as the NOX emitted comes from both the fuel burnt and the combustion 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 dataset used will have higher uncertainty. The 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 datasets are therefore of importance. Any uncertainties involved in the calculation and in the datasets need to be accurately communicated in the assessment to prevent erroneous messages influencing policy actions or processes.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/eea-32-nitrogen-oxides-nox-emissions-1/assessment.2010-08-19.0140149032-3 or scan the QR code.
PDF generated on 29 Mar 2024, 02:09 PM
Engineered by: EEA Web Team
Software updated on 26 September 2023 08:13 from version 23.8.18
Software version: EEA Plone KGS 23.9.14
Document Actions
Share with others