Assessment of China's virtual air pollution transport embodied in trade by a consumption-based emission inventory

Abstract. High anthropogenic emissions from China have resulted in serious air pollution, and it has attracted considerable academic and public concern. The physical transport of air pollutants in the atmosphere has been extensively investigated, however, understanding the mechanisms how the pollutants were transferred through economic and trade activities remains challenge. In this work, we assessed China's virtual air pollutant transport embodied in trade, by using consumption-based accounting approach. We first constructed a consumption-based emission inventory for China's four key air pollutants (primary PM2.5, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC)) in 2007, based on the bottom-up sectoral emission inventory concerning their production activities – a production-based inventory. We used a multiregional input-output (MRIO) model to integrate the sectoral production-based emissions and the associated economic and trade activities, and finally obtained consumption-based inventory. Unlike the production-based inventory, the consumption-based inventory tracked emissions throughout the supply chain related to the consumption of goods and services and hereby identified the emission flows followed the supply chains. From consumption-based perspective, emissions were significantly redistributed among provinces due to interprovincial trade. Large amount of emissions were embodied in the net imports of east regions from northern and central regions; these were determined by differences in the regional economic status and environmental policies. We also calculated the emissions embodied in exported and imported goods and services. It is found that 15–23% of China's pollutant emissions were related to exports for foreign consumption; that proportion was much higher for central and export-oriented coastal regions. It is suggested that measures should be introduced to reduce air pollution by integrating cross-regional consumers and producers in national agreements to encourage efficiency improvement in the supply chain and optimizing consumption structure internationally. The consumption-based air pollutants emission inventory developed in this work can be further used to attribute pollution to different economic activities and final demand types with the aid of air quality models.

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Assessment of China's virtual air pollution transport embodied in trade by using a consumption-based emission inventory

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-15-5443-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 15 (10) ◽

pp. 5443-5456 ◽

Cited By ~ 86

Author(s):

H. Y. Zhao ◽

Q. Zhang ◽

D. B. Guan ◽

S. J. Davis ◽

Z. Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Pollutants ◽

Emission Inventory ◽

Economic Status ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Pollutant Emission ◽

Pollution Transport ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Model Framework ◽

Central Regions

Abstract. Substantial anthropogenic emissions from China have resulted in serious air pollution, and this has generated considerable academic and public concern. The physical transport of air pollutants in the atmosphere has been extensively investigated; however, understanding the mechanisms how the pollutant was transferred through economic and trade activities remains a challenge. For the first time, we quantified and tracked China's air pollutant emission flows embodied in interprovincial trade, using a multiregional input–output model framework. Trade relative emissions for four key air pollutants (primary fine particle matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and non-methane volatile organic compounds) were assessed for 2007 in each Chinese province. We found that emissions were significantly redistributed among provinces owing to interprovincial trade. Large amounts of emissions were embodied in the imports of eastern regions from northern and central regions, and these were determined by differences in regional economic status and environmental policy. It is suggested that measures should be introduced to reduce air pollution by integrating cross-regional consumers and producers within national agreements to encourage efficiency improvement in the supply chain and optimize consumption structure internationally. The consumption-based air pollutant emission inventory developed in this work can be further used to attribute pollution to various economic activities and final demand types with the aid of air quality models.

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Comparison of emissions inventories of anthropogenic air pollutants and greenhouse gases in China

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-17-6393-2017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 17 (10) ◽

pp. 6393-6421 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Eri Saikawa ◽

Hankyul Kim ◽

Min Zhong ◽

Alexander Avramov ◽

Yu Zhao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Emission Inventory ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Central China ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Temporal And Spatial Distribution ◽

Emissions Inventories

Abstract. Anthropogenic air pollutant emissions have been increasing rapidly in China, leading to worsening air quality. Modelers use emissions inventories to represent the temporal and spatial distribution of these emissions needed to estimate their impacts on regional and global air quality. However, large uncertainties exist in emissions estimates. Thus, assessing differences in these inventories is essential for the better understanding of air pollution over China. We compare five different emissions inventories estimating emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 µm or less (PM10) from China. The emissions inventories analyzed in this paper include the Regional Emission inventory in ASia v2.1 (REAS), the Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC), the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research v4.2 (EDGAR), the inventory by Yu Zhao (ZHAO), and the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS). We focus on the period between 2000 and 2008, during which Chinese economic activities more than doubled. In addition to national totals, we also analyzed emissions from four source sectors (industry, transport, power, and residential) and within seven regions in China (East, North, Northeast, Central, Southwest, Northwest, and South) and found that large disagreements exist among the five inventories at disaggregated levels. These disagreements lead to differences of 67 µg m−3, 15 ppbv, and 470 ppbv for monthly mean PM10, O3, and CO, respectively, in modeled regional concentrations in China. We also find that all the inventory emissions estimates create a volatile organic compound (VOC)-limited environment and MEIC emissions lead to much lower O3 mixing ratio in East and Central China compared to the simulations using REAS and EDGAR estimates, due to their low VOC emissions. Our results illustrate that a better understanding of Chinese emissions at more disaggregated levels is essential for finding effective mitigation measures for reducing national and regional air pollution in China.

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The Efficiency of Economic Performance, Electricity Consumption, and Environmental Pollutants in Taiwan

Mathematical Problems in Engineering ◽

10.1155/2020/8260965 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Wen-jie Zou ◽

Tai-Yu Lin ◽

Yung-ho Chiu ◽

Ting Teng ◽

Kuei Ying Huang

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Economic Development ◽

Air Pollutants ◽

Electricity Consumption ◽

Living Environment ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Disposable Income ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Motor Vehicles ◽

Overall Efficiency

Finding the balance between economic development and environmental protection is a major problem for many countries around the world. Air pollution caused by economic growth has caused serious damage to humans’ living environment, and as improving energy and resource efficiencies is the first priority, many countries are targeting to move towards a sustainable environment and economic development. This study uses the modified dynamic SBM (slack-based measure) model to explore the economic efficiency and air pollutants emission efficiency in Taiwan’s counties and cities from 2012 to 2015 by taking labor, motor vehicles, and electricity consumption as inputs and average disposable income as output. Particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxide emissions (NO2), and sulfur oxide emissions (SO2) are undesirable outputs, whereas factory fixed assets are a carry-over variable, and the results show the following: (1) the regions with the best overall efficiency between 2012 and 2015 include Taipei City, Keelung City, Hsinchu City, Chiayi City, and Taitung County; (2) in counties and cities with poor overall efficiency performance, the average disposable income per household has no significant relationship with air pollutant emissions; (3) in counties and cities where overall efficiency is poor, the average efficiency of each household’s disposable income is small; and (4) except for the five counties and cities with the best overall performance, the three air pollutants in the other fourteen counties and cities are high. Overall, the air pollution of most areas needs improvement.

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HTAP_v2.2: a mosaic of regional and global emission grid maps for 2008 and 2010 to study hemispheric transport of air pollution

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ◽

10.5194/acp-15-11411-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 15 (19) ◽

pp. 11411-11432 ◽

Cited By ~ 312

Author(s):

G. Janssens-Maenhout ◽

M. Crippa ◽

D. Guizzardi ◽

F. Dentener ◽

M. Muntean ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Particulate Matter ◽

Low Income ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Global Scale ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Pollution Transport ◽

Data Set ◽

Per Capita

Abstract. The mandate of the Task Force Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (TF HTAP) under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) is to improve the scientific understanding of the intercontinental air pollution transport, to quantify impacts on human health, vegetation and climate, to identify emission mitigation options across the regions of the Northern Hemisphere, and to guide future policies on these aspects. The harmonization and improvement of regional emission inventories is imperative to obtain consolidated estimates on the formation of global-scale air pollution. An emissions data set has been constructed using regional emission grid maps (annual and monthly) for SO2, NOx, CO, NMVOC, NH3, PM10, PM2.5, BC and OC for the years 2008 and 2010, with the purpose of providing consistent information to global and regional scale modelling efforts. This compilation of different regional gridded inventories – including that of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for USA, the EPA and Environment Canada (for Canada), the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) and Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) for Europe, and the Model Inter-comparison Study for Asia (MICS-Asia III) for China, India and other Asian countries – was gap-filled with the emission grid maps of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGARv4.3) for the rest of the world (mainly South America, Africa, Russia and Oceania). Emissions from seven main categories of human activities (power, industry, residential, agriculture, ground transport, aviation and shipping) were estimated and spatially distributed on a common grid of 0.1° × 0.1° longitude-latitude, to yield monthly, global, sector-specific grid maps for each substance and year. The HTAP_v2.2 air pollutant grid maps are considered to combine latest available regional information within a complete global data set. The disaggregation by sectors, high spatial and temporal resolution and detailed information on the data sources and references used will provide the user the required transparency. Because HTAP_v2.2 contains primarily official and/or widely used regional emission grid maps, it can be recommended as a global baseline emission inventory, which is regionally accepted as a reference and from which different scenarios assessing emission reduction policies at a global scale could start. An analysis of country-specific implied emission factors shows a large difference between industrialised countries and developing countries for acidifying gaseous air pollutant emissions (SO2 and NOx) from the energy and industry sectors. This is not observed for the particulate matter emissions (PM10, PM2.5), which show large differences between countries in the residential sector instead. The per capita emissions of all world countries, classified from low to high income, reveal an increase in level and in variation for gaseous acidifying pollutants, but not for aerosols. For aerosols, an opposite trend is apparent with higher per capita emissions of particulate matter for low income countries.

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COVID-19 lockdowns cause global air pollution declines

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.2006853117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (32) ◽

pp. 18984-18990 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Zander S. Venter ◽

Kristin Aunan ◽

Sourangsu Chowdhury ◽

Jos Lelieveld

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Particulate Matter ◽

Fine Particulate Matter ◽

Ground Level ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Long Distance ◽

Mobility Data ◽

Fine Particulate

The lockdown response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused an unprecedented reduction in global economic and transport activity. We test the hypothesis that this has reduced tropospheric and ground-level air pollution concentrations, using satellite data and a network of >10,000 air quality stations. After accounting for the effects of meteorological variability, we find declines in the population-weighted concentration of ground-level nitrogen dioxide (NO2: 60% with 95% CI 48 to 72%), and fine particulate matter (PM2.5: 31%; 95% CI: 17 to 45%), with marginal increases in ozone (O3: 4%; 95% CI: −2 to 10%) in 34 countries during lockdown dates up until 15 May. Except for ozone, satellite measurements of the troposphere indicate much smaller reductions, highlighting the spatial variability of pollutant anomalies attributable to complex NOxchemistry and long-distance transport of fine particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5). By leveraging Google and Apple mobility data, we find empirical evidence for a link between global vehicle transportation declines and the reduction of ambient NO2exposure. While the state of global lockdown is not sustainable, these findings allude to the potential for mitigating public health risk by reducing “business as usual” air pollutant emissions from economic activities. Explore trends here:https://nina.earthengine.app/view/lockdown-pollution.

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The Study of Emission Inventory on Anthropogenic Air Pollutants and Source Apportionment of PM2.5 in the Changzhutan Urban Agglomeration, China

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos11070739 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 739

Author(s):

Bin Xu ◽

Xiangyu You ◽

Yaoyu Zhou ◽

Chunhao Dai ◽

Zhan Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Particulate Matter ◽

Source Apportionment ◽

Emission Inventory ◽

Chemical Constituents ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Urban Agglomeration ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Industrial Emissions ◽

Urban Agglomerations

As one of China’s emerging urban agglomerations, the Changzhutan urban area is suffering from regional composite air pollution. Previous studies mainly focus on single cities or world-class urban agglomerations, which cannot provide a scientific basis for air pollution in emerging urban agglomerations. This paper proposes the latest high-resolution emission inventory through the emission factor method and compares the results with the rest of the urban agglomeration. The emission inventory shows that the estimates for sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), particulate matter 10 (PM10), particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and ammonia (NH3) emission are 132.5, 148.9, 111.6, 56.5, 119.0, and 72.0 kt, respectively. From the 3 × 3 km emission grid, the spatial difference of air pollutant emissions in the Changzhutan urban agglomeration was more obvious, but the overall trend of monthly pollutant discharge was relatively stable. Depending on the source apportionment, SO42−, OC, and NO3− are the main chemical constituents of PM2.5, accounting for 13.06, 8.24, and 4.84 μg/m3, respectively. Simultaneously, industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, and dust are still three main sources that cannot be ignored. With the support of these data, the results of this study may provide a reference for other emerging urban agglomerations in air quality.

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Emerging Concerns on Air Pollutants from Chemistry Laboratories of University: Ozone Formation Potential, Emission Characteristics, and Emission Inventory in Beijing, China

10.21203/rs.3.rs-449206/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Chenlong Wang ◽

Xiaoxi Zhang ◽

Kun Wang ◽

Jiajia Gao ◽

Penglai Zuo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollutants ◽

Emission Inventory ◽

Raw Materials ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Atmospheric Pollutants ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Ozone Formation ◽

Formation Potential ◽

Ozone Formation Potential ◽

Materials Used

Abstract Chemical laboratories of Universities are an important source of air pollutant emissions in urban area, but their detailed emission factors have rarely been investigated. This study determined the concentration level and chemical composition spectrum of air pollutants from 21 typical chemical laboratories of universities in Beijing. Based on quantitative analysis using a GC-MS/FTIR/FID system, the emission intensity of each laboratory area was estimated, the ozone formation potential (OFP) was calculated, and the emission inventory of atmospheric pollutants in chemical laboratories of universities in Beijing was estimated. According to the results, the atmospheric pollutants discharged by the laboratories could be characterized by wide species distribution and low concentrations of single components. The average concentrations of atmospheric pollutants from the three outlets were 20.6 ± 8.9 µmol/mol (mean ± S.D.), 26.5 ± 4.8 µmol/mol, and 14.7 ± 5.8 µmol/mol. VOC emission was significantly affected using organic solvents. Pollutant emissions from the laboratories exhibited strong periodicity, and the raw materials used in the experiments were the main factor affecting the final pollutant concentration. The emission intensities of atmospheric pollutants from the three outlets were 35.06 ± 38.08 g/(m2·d), 22.83 ± 18.88 g/(m2·d) and 24.03 ± 28.78 g/(m2·d), and their TOFP were 27.8 ± 39.1 µmol/mol, 22.0 ± 21.2 µmol/mol, and 14.5 ± 28.9 µmol/mol. The total emission of atmospheric pollutants from university chemical laboratories in Beijing in 2019 was estimated at approximately 2630.8 ± 2710.3 t, including 675.8 ± 610.6 t of inorganic gaseous pollutants and 1932.0 ± 2081.2 t of VOCs, with Haidian District as the largest contributor.

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Comparison of Emissions Inventories of Anthropogenic Air Pollutants in China

10.5194/acp-2016-888 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Eri Saikawa ◽

Hankyul Kim ◽

Min Zhong ◽

Yu Zhao ◽

Greet Janssens-Maenhout ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Central China ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Temporal And Spatial Distribution ◽

Emissions Inventory ◽

Anthropogenic Air Pollutants ◽

Emissions Inventories ◽

Regional Emissions

Abstract. Anthropogenic air pollutant emissions have been increasing rapidly in China. Modelers use emissions inventories to assess temporal and spatial distribution of these emissions to estimate their impacts on regional and global air quality. However, large uncertainties exist in emissions estimates and assessing discrepancies in these inventories is essential for better understanding of the trends in air pollution over China. We compare five different emissions inventories estimating emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 um or less (PM10) from China. The emissions inventories analyzed in this paper include Regional Emissions inventory in ASia v2.1 (REAS); Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC); Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research v4.2 (EDGAR); the inventory by Yu Zhao (ZHAO); and the Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS). We focus on the period between 2000 and 2008 during which the Chinese economic activities have more than doubled. In addition to the national total, we also analyzed emissions from four source sectors (industry, transportation, power, and residential) and within seven regions in China (East, North, Northeast, Central, Southwest, Northwest, and South) and found that large disagreements (~ seven fold) exist among the five inventories at disaggregated levels. These discrepancies lead to differences of 67 ug/m3, 15 ppbv, and 470 ppbv for monthly mean PM10, O3, and CO, respectively, in modelled regional concentrations in China. We also find that MEIC inventory emissions estimates create a VOC-limited environment that produces much lower O3 mixing ratio in the East and Central China compared to the simulations using REAS and EDGAR estimates. Our results illustrate that a better understanding of Chinese emissions at more disaggregated levels is essential for finding an effective mitigation measure for reducing national and regional air pollution in China.

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HTAP_v2: a mosaic of regional and global emission gridmaps for 2008 and 2010 to study hemispheric transport of air pollution

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ◽

10.5194/acpd-15-12867-2015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 15 (8) ◽

pp. 12867-12909 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

G. Janssens-Maenhout ◽

M. Crippa ◽

D. Guizzardi ◽

F. Dentener ◽

M. Muntean ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Environmental Protection Agency ◽

Task Force ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Income Group ◽

Global Scale ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Pollution Transport ◽

Emission Mitigation

Abstract. The mandate of the Task Force Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (HTAP) under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) is to improve the scientific understanding of the intercontinental air pollution transport, to quantify impacts on human health, vegetation and climate, to identify emission mitigation options across the regions of the Northern Hemisphere, and to guide future policies on these aspects. The harmonization and improvement of regional emission inventories is imperative to obtain consolidated estimates on the formation of global-scale air pollution. An emissions dataset has been constructed using regional emission gridmaps (annual and monthly) for SO2, NOx, CO, NMVOC, NH3, PM10, PM2.5, BC and OC for the years 2008 and 2010, with the purpose of providing consistent information to global and regional scale modelling efforts. This compilation of different regional gridded inventories, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s for USA, EPA and Environment Canada's for Canada, the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) and Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)'s for Europe, and the Model Inter-comparison Study in Asia (MICS-Asia)'s for China, India and other Asian countries, was gap-filled with the emission gridmaps of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGARv4.3) for the rest of the world (mainly South-America, Africa, Russia and Oceania). Emissions from seven main categories of human activities (power, industry, residential, agriculture, ground transport, aviation and shipping) were estimated and spatially distributed on a common grid of 0.1° × 0.1° longitude–latitude, to yield monthly, global, sector-specific gridmaps for each substance and year. The HTAP_v2.2 air pollutant gridmaps are considered to combine latest available regional information within a complete global dataset. The disaggregation by sectors, high spatial and temporal resolution and detailed information on the data sources and references used will provide the user the required transparency. Because HTAP_v2.2 contains primarily official and/or widely used regional emission gridmaps, it can be recommended as a global baseline emission inventory, which is regionally accepted as a reference and from which different scenarios assessing emission reduction policies at a global scale could start. An analysis of country-specific implied emission factors shows a large difference between industrialised countries and developing countries for all air pollutant emissions from the energy and industry sectors, but not from the residential one. A comparison of the population weighted emissions for all world countries, grouped into four classes of similar income, reveals that the per capita emissions are, with increasing income group of countries, increasing in level but also in variation for all air pollutants but not for aerosols.

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Gridded Emissions of Air Pollutants for the period 1970–2012 within EDGAR v4.3.2

10.5194/essd-2018-31 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Monica Crippa ◽

Diego Guizzardi ◽

Marilena Muntean ◽

Edwin Schaaf ◽

Frank Dentener ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Time Series ◽

Air Pollutants ◽

Emission Inventory ◽

Ghg Emissions ◽

Emission Factors ◽

Air Pollutant ◽

Pollutant Emissions ◽

Activity Data ◽

Time Period ◽

Over Time

Abstract. The new version v4.3.2 of the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR v4.3.2) compiles gaseous and particulate air pollutant emissions, making use of the same anthropogenic sectors, time period (1970–2012) and international activity data as used for estimating GHG emissions as described in a companion paper (Janssens-Maenhout et al., 2017). All human activities, except large scale biomass burning and land use, land-use change and forestry, are included in the emissions calculation. The bottom-up compilation methodology of sector-specific emissions was applied consistently for all world countries, providing methodological transparency and comparability between countries. In addition to the activity data used to estimate GHG emissions, air pollutant emissions are determined by the process technology and end-of-pipe emission reduction abatements. Region-specific emission factors and abatement measures were selected from recent scientific available literature and reports. 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 QC/QA procedures both for the emission time series (e.g. PM mass balance, gap-filling for missing data, split-up of countries over time, etc.) and gridmaps (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, NOx, SO2, total NMVOC and NH3 and on the aerosols PM10, PM2.5, BC and OC. Considering the 1970–2012 time period, global emissions of SO2 increased from 99 to 103 Tg, CO from 441 to 562 Tg, NOx from 68 to 122 Tg, NMVOC from 119 to 170 Tg, NH3 from 25 to 59 Tg, PM10 from 37 to 65 Tg, PM2.5 from 24 to 41 Tg, BC from 2.7 to 4.5 Tg and OC from 9 to 11 Tg. We present the country-specific emission totals and analyse 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 EFs are higher for low income countries compared to high income countries, but in both cases decreasing from 1970 to 2012. The comparison with other global inventories, such as HTAP v2.2 and CEDS, reveals insights on the uncertainties as well as the impact of data revisions (e.g. activity data, emission factors, etc.). As an additional metric we analyse the emission ratios of some pollutants to CO2 (e.g. CO/CO2, NOx/CO2, NOx/CO and SO2/CO2) by sector, region and time to identify any decoupling of air pollutant emissions from energy production activities and to demonstrate the potential of such ratios to compare to satellite derived emission data. Gridded emissions are also made available for the 1970–2012 historic time series, disaggregated for 26 anthropogenic sectors using updated spatial proxies. The analysis of the evolution of hot spots over time allowed us to identify areas with growing emissions and where emissions should be constrained to improve global air quality (e.g. China, India, Middle East and some Southern American countries are often characterized by high emitting areas which are changing rapidly compared to Europe or USA where stable or decreasing emissions are evaluated). Sector-and component specific contributions to gridcell emissions may help the modelling and satellite communities to disaggregate atmospheric column amounts and concentrations into main emitting sectors. This work addresses not only the emission inventory and modelling communities, but also aims to broaden the usefulness information available in a global emission inventory such as EDGAR to also include the measurement community. Data are publicly available online through the EDGAR website http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=432_AP&SECURE=123 and registered under DOI: https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2904/JRC_DATASET_EDGAR.

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