Title; Table of Contents and Exec. Summary

Review of CORINAIR 90 Proposals for Air Emissions 1994 Topic report 6/96 by Simon Eggleston European Topic Centre on Air Emissions November 1996 This report was prepared under the supervision of Gordon McInnes, Project Manager, European Environment Agency

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CORINAIR is a programme to establish an inventory of emissions of air pollutants in Europe. It was initiated by the European Environment Agency Task Force and was part of the CORINE (COoRdination d'INformation Environmentale) work programme set up by the European Council of Ministers in 1985.

End of 1994 the EEA’s European Topic Centre on Air Emissions (ETC/AEM) took over the CORINAIR programme and finalised several reports on the results of CORINAIR1990. The results of CORINAIR1990 provided the most detailed, complete, consistent and transparent European air emission inventory.

There still remained gaps and inconsistencies in CORINAIR90 and the process to deliver the final data took too long. This report presents the results of a review of CORINAIR90 and gives detailed proposals for improvements, e.g. : give priority to nationals totals which are split in the same detailed source nomenclature (SNAP) for different reporting purposes (UNECE/EMEP, UN-FCCC/IPCC), collect and report (preliminary) data within twelve months, make use of consistent energy statistics, improve the software, give intensive assistance to participating countries. The proposals were followed by another report "Recommendations for Revised Data System for Air Emission Inventories". In 1996 the ETC/AEM started the 1994 air emission inventory making use new software, which was improved based on the two reports mentioned.

Note:

In order to reduce confusion in this document between the past and future European inventories this document uses the terms CORINAIR 90 to describe the inventory being completed for 1990 under the CORINE programme, and Air Emissions '94 to describe the proposed inventory for Europe for the year 1994. However it is recommended that due to its familiarity and in order to emphasise the continuity of the exercise, the CORINAIR name is retained for future inventories.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CORINAIR 90 was initiated by the European Environment Agency Task Force to produce an European emission inventory. Its scope was wider than the EC countries at that time and now covers 31 countries. Now the European Environment Agency (EEA) wishes to continue with this inventory work and has set up a Topic Centre on Air Emissions. The first task of this Topic Centre is to review CORINAIR 90 and make proposals for the future, in particular for Air Emissions '94, the next proposed European emission inventory. The main points of this report are:-

• CORINAIR 90 has achieved a new level of co-operation and collaboration in this area of work. It has achieved agreement of classification and on default approaches to the different emission sources. It is now producing data for 1990 which give emission estimates with higher levels of consistency and comparability than those achieved before. A source classification system, SNAP (Selected Nomenclature for Air Pollution), has been agreed with the result that emission estimates are now becoming available in greater detail than before.

• There are a number of problems with CORINAIR 90. The main one is the time taken to complete the inventories. Only now, in 1995, are 1990 estimates becoming widely available.

• There are also a number of detailed points relating to the SNAP codes and consistency of use that need to be addressed. These are discussed in the report.

• A review of users’ needs indicates that there are a number of priority needs. In particular national level data is needed on a short time-scale. The EU requires CO₂ estimates within 7 months. Some countries can already meet this deadline and it is proposed that the Topic Centre assists other countries to reach the same reporting speeds.

• It is proposed that inventories are collected annually with national level data being available within six months for some data and 12 months for a wider range. In the next year the spatial detail is collected and the estimates broadened to a wider range of pollutants. Thus the whole process is completed within 24 months with some data available at 6 and 12 months. The report gives the detail of this process.

• An important point is that some of this data will be provisional. In the past some countries have not wished to release provisional information and then revise it later. However the time-scales clearly indicate that final data will not be available to meet user requirements. Inventory data, by their very nature, are estimates. They can never be regarded as final figures as they may be improved at any time, thus data suppliers and users must realise that they are the best estimate available by a given deadline.

• This report also identifies a range of development tasks that need to be carried out. These range from improvement of the SNAP codes and software changes to urban emissions inventories and validation activities. These will need to progress in parallel with the data collection work. Some of these development tasks will need to progress in collaboration with others such as EUROSTAT (for SNAP) and the EMEP/CORINAIR guidebook and UNECE Task Force on Emission Inventories for methodological improvements.

• This report has identified a number of issues where further work is needed to clarify final solutions, e.g. in the treatment of confidential data.

• The Air Emissions Topic Centre will need to give much greater training and assistance to each country to ensure the speedy completion of the data collection tasks. This will require careful management to ensure that the development work and the data collection activities proceed in a timely and efficient fashion. In addition, there appears to be a number of tasks that will be subcontracted outside the Air Emissions Topic Centre to ensure they are completed on time in a cost effective way.