Introduction

CAMS co-funds Carbon Monitor to provide regularly updated estimates of daily CO2 emissions based on activity data for six sectors. Carbon Monitor monitors the variations of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production since 1 January 2019 at national level with near-global coverage. Daily CO2 emissions are estimated from a diverse range of activity data, including hourly to daily electrical power generation data of 29 countries, downscaled monthly production data and production indices of industry processes of 62 countries/regions, and daily mobility data and mobility indices of road transportation of 416 cities worldwide. Individual flight location data and monthly data are utilised for aviation and maritime transportation sectors estimates. In addition, monthly fuel consumption data that are corrected for daily air temperature of 206 countries were used for estimating the emissions from commercial and residential buildings. Carbon Monitor data show the dynamic nature of CO2 emissions through daily, weekly and seasonal variations as influenced by workdays and holidays, as well as the unfolding impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent events such as the war in Ukraine and recent droughts in Europe and China.

Methodology

Gaining from past experiences of constructing annual inventories and newly compiled activity data, Carbon Monitor is a novel daily dataset of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production at national level. The countries/regions include EU member states, UK, U.S., China, India, Russia, Japan, Brazil, and rest of world (ROW), as well as the emissions from international bunker fuels from ships and aircraft. The dataset is separated into several key emission sectors: power sector (39% of total emissions), industrial production (28%), ground transport (18%), air transport (3%), ship transport (2%), and residential consumption (10 %). Daily emissions estimates are produced for these six sectors, based on dynamically and regularly updated activity data. This is made possible by the availability of recent activity data such as hourly electrical power generation, traffic indices, aircraft locations and natural gas distribution, with the assumption that the daily variation of emissions is driven by the activity data and that the contribution from emission factors is negligible, as they evolve at longer time scales, e.g. from policy implementation and technology shifts. 

The framework of Carbon Monitor is illustrated in the figure below. National CO2 emissions and international aviation and shipping emissions are calculated since Jan 1st 2019, drawing on hourly datasets of electricity power production and their CO2 emissions in 29 countries (thus including the substantial variations in carbon intensity associated with the variable mix of electricity production), daily vehicle traffic indices in 416 cities worldwide, monthly production data for cement, steel and other energy intensive industrial products in 62 countries/regions, daily maritime and aircraft transportation activity data, and either previous-year fuel use data corrected for air temperature to residential and the commercial buildings. Together, these data cover almost all fossil fuels and industry sources of global CO2 emissions, except for the emission from land use change (up to 10% of global CO2 emissions) and non-fossil fuel CO2 emissions of industrial products (up to 2% of global CO2 emissions) in addition to cement and clinker (i.e., plate glass, ammonia, calcium carbide, soda ash, ethylene, ferroalloys, alumina, lead and zinc, etc.).


Data processing framework of Carbon Monitor

Figure 1: Data processing framework of Carbon Monitor

While daily emission can be directly calculated using near-real-time activity data and emission factors for the electricity power sector, such an approach is difficult to apply to all sectors. For the industry sector, emissions can be estimated monthly in some countries. For the other sectors, we used proxy data instead of daily real activity data, to dynamically downscale the annual or monthly CO2 emissions totals on a daily basis. For instance, traffic indices in cities representative of each country were used instead of actual vehicle counts and categories, combined with annual national total sectoral emissions, to produce daily road transportation emissions. As such, for the road transportation, air transportation and residential sectors in most countries, we downscaled monthly or annual total emission data in 2019 to calculate the daily CO2 emission in the year. Subsequently, we scaled monthly totals of 2019 by daily proxies of activities to obtain daily CO2 emissions data in the first four months of 2020, during the unprecedented disturbance of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Carbon Monitor near-real-time CO2 emission dataset shows a 7.8% decline of CO2 emission globally from January 1st to April 30th in 2020 when compared with the same period in 2019, and detects a re-growth of CO2 emissions by late April which are mainly attributed to the recovery of economy activities in China and partial easing of lockdowns in other countries.

Data organisation and access

The CAMS Carbon Monitor data are presented through interactive graphics showing either time series or temporal differences in the form of bar charts. All graphics can be downloaded. The underlying data can be directly downloaded from these graphics in the form of Excel files (.xlsx).

Spatial grid

Data is presented as country totals per sector (6 sectors).

Temporal frequency

The temporal frequency is daily.

Data update frequency

Data is updated every two months (end of May, end of July, etc.)

Parameters listings 

Data consists of country total daily CO2 emissions for the following sectors: power generation, industry, ground transport, residential, domestic aviation, and International aviation. The data is presented in MtCO2 per day (Megatons CO2 per day).

Known issues

Full documentation of methodology and changes can be found on the Carbon Monitor Methods page.

Data policy, licence and disclaimer

CAMS co-funds Carbon Monitor with a specific focus on the European domain. Therefore, the general Carbon Monitor data policy applies, as outlined hereafter. Carbon Monitor data are made freely available to the public and the scientific community in the belief that their wide dissemination will lead to greater understanding and new scientific insights. The availability of these data does not constitute publication of the data.  The data providers rely on the ethics and integrity of the user to ensure that they receive fair credit for their work.

  • If the data are obtained for potential use in a publication or presentation, we kindly ask you to inform us at the outset of the nature of this work.
  • If the Carbon Monitor data are essential to the work, or if an important result or conclusion depends on the Carbon Monitor data, co-authorship may be appropriate. This should be discussed at an early stage in the work.  Manuscripts using the Carbon Monitor data should be sent to the contacts below for review before they are submitted for publication, so we can ensure that the quality and limitations of the data are accurately represented. 
  • Contact for the data: contact.carbonmonitor@gmail.com.

Carbon Monitor data are made freely available to the public with the above fair use open data policy.  Carbon Monitor is a living dataset subject to updates and the values are expected to change, as new data get included. In the process of updating the daily CO2 emission products, errors may be corrected, revisions may be made in the calculation methods, and new information may be used. Data files available for download and graphs are associated to a day of release. In case of questions regarding data and history of previous releases, please contact us at contact.carbonmonitor@gmail.com.  All information displayed and provided can be used at the own responsibility of users and does not engage any responsibility from research institutions supporting Carbon Monitor and partner institutions

How to cite the data

We encourage users to cite the data by https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18922-7 or https://doi.org/10.31223/X5BS5B.

References

  • Liu, Z., Ciais, P., Deng, Z. et al. Carbon Monitor, a near-real-time daily dataset of global CO2 emission from fossil fuel and cement production. Sci Data 7, 392 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-00708-7
  • [for U.S. Carbon Monitor]: Hong, C., Ciais, P., Liu, Z., Boucher, O., Zhao, W., Gentine, P., Wang, Y., Deng, Z., and Davis, S.J.. Near-real-time and state-level monitoring of U.S. CO2 emissions. EarthArXiv preprint: https://doi.org/10.31223/X5BS5B
  • [for EU Carbon Monitor]: Ke, P., Deng, Z., Zhu, B. et al. Carbon Monitor Europe, near-real-time daily CO2 emissions for 27 EU countries and the United Kingdom. Arxiv preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.01944


This document has been produced in the context of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).

The activities leading to these results have been contracted by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, operator of CAMS on behalf of the European Union (Delegation Agreement signed on 11/11/2014 and Contribution Agreement signed on 22/07/2021). All information in this document is provided "as is" and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose.

The users thereof use the information at their sole risk and liability. For the avoidance of all doubt , the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium - Range Weather Forecasts have no liability in respect of this document, which is merely representing the author's view.

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