EGU23-1647, updated on 22 Feb 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1647
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Development of a new global CO2 emission database with highly-resolved source category and sub-country information: methodology and 1970-2021 emissions

Ruochong Xu1, Qiang Zhang1, Dan Tong1, Qingyang Xiao1, Xinying Qin1, Cuihong Chen1, Liu Yan1, Jing Cheng1, Can Cui1, Hanwen Hu2, Wenyu Liu1, Xizhe Yan1, Huaxuan Wang2, Xiaodong Liu2, Guannan Geng2, Dabo Guan1, and Kebin He2,3
Ruochong Xu et al.
  • 1Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China
  • 2State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China
  • 3Institute for Carbon Neutrality, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China

CO2 emission database lays the foundation of climate research and climate governance. Most current global CO2 emission inventories were developed with energy statistics from International Energy Agency (IEA) and were available at country level with limited source categories. Here, as the first step toward a high-resolution and dynamic updated global CO2 emission database, we developed a data-driven approach to construct seamless and highly-resolved energy consumption data cubes for 208 countries/territories, 797 sub-country administrative divisions in 29 countries, 42 fuel types, and 52 sectors, with the fusion of energy consumption from 24 international statistics and 66 regional/local statistics. Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production in 1970-2021 were then estimated with highly-resolved source category (1484 of total) and sub-country information (797 of total). Specifically, 73% of global CO2 emissions in 2021 were calculated based on sub-country information, providing considerably improved spatial resolution for global CO2 accounting. With the support of detailed information, the dynamics of global CO2 emissions across sectors and fuels were presented, representing the evolution of global economy and progress of climate governance. Remarkable differences of sectoral contribution were found across sub-country administrative divisions within a given country, revealing the uneven distribution of energy and economic structure among different regions. Our estimates were generally consistent with existing databases at aggregated level for global total or large emitters, while large discrepancies were observed for middle and small emitters. Our database, named Multi-resolution Emission Inventory model for Climate and air pollution research (MEIC) is publicly available through http://meicmodel.org.cn with highly-resolved information and timely update, which provides an independent carbon emission accounting data source for climate research.

How to cite: Xu, R., Zhang, Q., Tong, D., Xiao, Q., Qin, X., Chen, C., Yan, L., Cheng, J., Cui, C., Hu, H., Liu, W., Yan, X., Wang, H., Liu, X., Geng, G., Guan, D., and He, K.: Development of a new global CO2 emission database with highly-resolved source category and sub-country information: methodology and 1970-2021 emissions, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1647, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1647, 2023.