Category: National governments, Emission inventories

Review of inventories submitted under the National Emission Ceilings Directive

Aether has been involved in reviewing national emission inventories for more than 20 years, and provides several staff for key roles in the NEC Directive reviews.

The Challenge

"Air pollution is causing damage to human health and ecosystems. Large parts of the population do not live in a healthy environment, according to current standards. To get on to a sustainable path, Europe will have to be ambitious and go beyond current legislation" (Hans Bruyninckx, EEA Executive Director).

Whilst there are many different air pollutants, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone are recognised as the pollutants that currently have the most significant impacts on human health and ecosystems. Air pollution can be transported across large distances, meaning that the effects can range from local to European and even up to the hemispheric scale. As a result, tackling air pollution issues requires joined-up approaches across countries.

Within the EU there are several approaches being taken to control emissions of air pollutants. Long-term objectives are in place to reduce the exposure to air pollution and improve air quality. The EU’s NEC Directive establishes emission reduction commitments for each Member State. To demonstrate progress towards their commitments they are required to report their historical emissions and adopt National Air Pollution Control Plans (NAPCPs). To ensure that their emission estimates are accurate, they are subject to a detailed technical review each year.

The Solution

The annual reviews of the emissions data submitted by Member States involve technical experts checking the quality of the estimates and in particular the accuracy. The reviews are designed to be constructive and to support Member States in making improvements to their emission estimates. The outcome of the reviews is primarily to provide recommendations to Member State technical experts on how priority improvements can be undertaken. Any more serious quality issues found result in improvements being undertaken during the course of the review.

Aether staff have been involved in reviewing national emission inventories for more than 20 years, and we regularly provide several staff for key roles in the NEC Directive reviews. As well as providing technical experts, Aether plays a leading role in  the process of the review. This includes project planning and management, the development of review processes and tools, carrying out technical checks on the inventory data, leading on quality checking, and creating the review reports for Member States.

In recent years, the annual reviews have been of fundamental importance in driving improvements in the quality of the national emission estimates and ensuring that all Member States are working towards a submission that meets defined quality standards.

The Result

Emission inventories are a fundamentally important tool for policy formation. They indicate the current priorities in terms of pollutant emissions and are the basis for making estimates of how emissions will change in future years. They are also used by Member States to formally demonstrate compliance with their commitments under the NEC Directive. It is important that the quality of the emission estimates is understood, and that the estimates are demonstrated to be of sufficient quality. Aether will be involved with the reviews for 2020 to 2023, helping to improve the quality of Member State submissions.

It is only with sufficiently reliable emission inventories that Member States and the European Commission can undertake the formation of new air quality policies and review the progress of existing policies.

See all case studies

Chris Dore

Director

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Testimonial

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“Aether delivered training workshops and generated learning materials for our SSN members, providing technical content in a manageable and comprehendible format. We particularly benefitted from their extensive knowledge and ability to interpret the needs of our members into the training materials.”

Jennifer Anderson, Sustainable Scotland Network

“Aether is a great partner for work in the area of European Air Emissions. The team was committed, reliable, well organised and had a deep technical understanding and motivated other partners with their good spirit.”

Umweltbundesamt: Environment Agency Austria

“The Aether team were a joy to work with and I would recommend the consultancy - the service provided throughout the process was exceptional.”

Clare Bayley, Defra

“Engaging Aether to support us to develop the first GHG Inventory System and first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for the United Republic of Tanzania has been a rewarding experience due to their high level of professionalism, creativity, timeliness and value for money. We will definitely consider Aether in our future initiatives.”

Abbas Kitogo, Programme Specialist Energy and Climate Change, UNDP Tanzania

“If we have a need for any more reports in the future Aether will be first on my list.”

Alan Hardy, Kyson Design

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Matthew Dudley, UNFCCC Secretariat

“Saint Lucia embraces the professional approach with which this project was undertaken by Aether, particularly their ability to develop mentorship relations with local government experts. This provides a basis for ensuring that the pool of local experts remain engaged and recognized over successive processes.”

Annette Rattigan-Leo, Chief Sustainable Development and Environment Officer

“Aether was a great asset in involving/engaging with Member States experts on highly technical subjects regarding GHG reporting. Very clear communication of issues and results.”

Andreas Pilzecker, DG CLIMA

“We have worked with Aether since 2019 to baseline, and subsequently update, our council and borough greenhouse gas inventories. It is a pleasure working with Aether’s professional, responsive, collaborative and helpful team. ”

Merton Council

“Aether's approach to couple innovative visualisation with high expertise manpower delivered valuable insights for our inventory work.”

Umweltbundesamt (Germany)

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