Gridded emissions of air pollutants for the period 1970–2012 within EDGAR v4.3.2

Compared to previous versions of EDGAR, the EDGAR v4.3.2 dataset covers all gaseous and particulate air pollutants, has extended time series (1970–2012), and has been evaluated with quality control and quality assurance (QC and QA) procedures both for the emission time series (e.g. particulate matter – PM – mass balance, gap-filling for missing data, the split-up of countries over time, few updates in the emission factors, etc.) and grid maps (full coverage of the world, complete mapping of EDGAR emissions with sector-specific proxies, etc.). This publication focuses on the gaseous air pollutants of CO, NO_x, SO₂, total non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs), NH₃, and the aerosols PM₁₀, PM_2.5, black carbon (BC), and organic carbon (OC).

Considering the 1970–2012 time period, global emissions of SO₂ increased from 99 to 103Mt, CO from 441 to 562Mt, NO_x from 68 to 122Mt, NMVOC from 119 to 170Mt, NH₃ from 25 to 59Mt, PM₁₀ from 37 to 65Mt, PM_2.5 from 24 to 41Mt, BC from 2.7 to 4.5Mt, and OC from 9 to 11Mt. We present the country-specific emission totals and analyze the larger emitting countries (including the European Union) to provide insights on major sector contributions. In addition, per capita and per GDP emissions and implied emission factors – the apparent emissions per unit of production or energy consumption – are presented. We find that the implied emission factors (EFs) are higher for low-income countries compared to high-income countries, but in both cases decrease from 1970 to 2012.