All official European Union website addresses are in the europa.eu domain.
See all EU institutions and bodiesVariations (1990-2023) in the emissions of pollutants from transport by mode in EU-27
Chart (interactive)
This figure shows the relative change (in percentage) in the emissions of different pollutants (CO, NOx, NMVOC, SOx, NH3, CH4, N2O, PM10, PM2.5) in the transport sector by transport mode between 1990 and 2023.
- National emissions reported to the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP Convention), v1.1, 2025, European Environment Agency (EEA)
- National emissions reported to the UNFCCC and to the EU under the Governance Regulation, 2025 ver. 3.0, European Environment Agency (EEA)
- Cyprus
- Portugal
- Spain
- Malta
- Denmark
- Sweden
- Netherlands
- Austria
- Belgium
- Germany
- Luxembourg
- Ireland
- France
- Slovakia
- Czechia
- Italy
- Slovenia
- Croatia
- Greece
- Estonia
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Finland
- Hungary
- Bulgaria
- Poland
- Romania
Additional information
PM2.5/ PM10: particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 μm/10 μm or less respectively
NMVOCs: non-methane volatile organic compounds
SOx: sulphur oxides
NOx: nitrogen oxides
CO: carbon monoxide
NH3: ammonia
CH4: methane
N2O: nitrous oxide
Light duty vehicles include passenger cars and light commercial vehicles; heavy duty vehicles include trucks and busses. See more details in the supporting information. Road transport PM emissions include non-exhaust emissions from brakes and tyres, in all other case PM indicates exhaust emissions. Shipping international includes both maritime and inland waterways shipping. Aviation includes both cruise and landing/take-off.
Methodology
For CO, NOx, NMVOC, SOx, NH3, PM10 and PM2.5, data officially reported to the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP)/LRTAP Convention were used. For CH4 and N2O data officially reported under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and also under the Kyoto Protocol (KP) were used.
Where a complete time series of emission data has not been reported for CO, NOx, NMVOCs, SOx, NH3, PM10 and PM2.5, data have been gap filled according to the methodologies of the European Environment Agency's (EEA's) European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC). Details of the gap-filling procedure for the air pollutant data set are described in the EU emission inventory report under the UNECE's Convention on LRTAP. Similarly, for CH4 and N2O additional information on the gap-filling procedure can be found in the Annual European Union greenhouse gas inventory and inventory document.