European Commission
EDGAR - Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research
  • Dataset

Global Unintentional POPs Emissions

EDGAR v8.1

Introduction

EDGARv8.1 provides emissions not only for the greenhouse gases per sector and country but also for toxic pollutants such as Unintentional Persistent Organic Pollutants (UPOPs):

  • Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs): benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), benzo[b]fluoranthene (BbF), benzo[k]fluoranthene (BkF) and Indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene (IcdP)
  • Dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs)
  • Hexachlorobenzene (HCB)
  • Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

For the energy related sectors the activity data are primarily based on IEA data from IEA (2025) World Energy Balances, All rights reserved, as modified by Joint Research Centre, European Commission, whereas the activity data for the agricultural sectors originate primarily from FAO (2025). United States Geological Survey (USGS), UNFCCC and World Steel Association (worldsteel) recent statistics are also used for activity data. Additional information can be found in Muntean et al. (2026, in preparation).

Compared to previous EDGAR data releases the following updates have been included:

  • Update of activity data for combustion related emissions based on IEA data up to the year 2022.
  • Update of activity data for agriculture related emissions based on FAO statistics (2025) up to 2022.
  • Extension of the UPOPs emission time series for the latest years up to 2024 using a Fast Track approach as described in Guizzardi et al. (2025).
  • The UPOPs emission estimates have been improved by revising the emission factors primarily for the iron and steel production, non-ferrous metals production and solid waste incineration sectors.
  • More up-to-date spatial proxies have been used for UPOPs emissions distribution.
  • This release includes both monthly emissions time series and monthly sector‑specific gridmaps.

Annual totals by sector and country (1970-2024)

Monthly totals by sector and country (1970-2024)

Annual gridmaps (1970-2024)

Annual sector-specific gridmaps (1970-2024)

Monthly sector-specific gridmaps (2000-2024)

Sources and references

Guizzardi, D., Becker, W., Pagani, F., Muntean, M. & Crippa, M. Global up-to date emissions using the EDGAR Fast-Track methodology. Scientific Data 12, 1243, doi:10.1038/s41597-025-04806-2, (2025).

Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Pagani, F., Schiavina, M., Melchiorri, M., Pisoni, E., Graziosi, F., Muntean, M., Maes, J., Dijkstra, L., Van Damme, M., Clarisse, L., and Coheur, P.: Insights into the spatial distribution of global, national, and subnational greenhouse gas emissions in the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR v8.0), Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 2811–2830, doi:10.5194/essd-16-2811-2024, 2024b.

Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Huang, G., Guizzardi, D., Koffi, E., Muntean, M., Schieberle, C., Friedrich, R. and Janssens-Maenhout, G.: High resolution temporal profiles in the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. Sci Data 7, 121 (2020). doi:10.1038/s41597-020-0462-2.

IEA World energy balances: IEA family and beyond, April 2025 Edition, www.iea.org.

FAOSTAT (2025), Statistics Division of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN: www.fao.org/faostat, Last access May 2025.

USGS, USGS Commodity Statistics (May 2025), https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/commodity-statistics-and-information, 2025.

World Steel Association, (worldsteel) (2025), Steel Statistical Yearbook 2025, https://worldsteel.org, 2025.

Muntean, M., Janssens-Maenhout , G., Song, 5., Giang, A., Selin, N. E., Zhong, H., Zhao, Y., Olivier , J. G. J., Guizzardi , D., Crippa, M., Schaaf, E., and Dentener , F.: Evaluating EDGARv4.tox2 speciated mercury emissions ex-post scenarios and their impacts on modelled global and regional wet deposition patterns, Atmospheric Environment, 184, 56-68, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.04.017, 2018.

Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Muntean, M., Schaaf, E., Dentener, F., van Aardenne, J. A., Monni, S., Doering, U., Olivier, J. G. J., Pagliari, V., and Janssens-Maenhout, G.: Gridded emissions of air pollutants for the period 1970–2012 within EDGAR v4.3.2, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 10, 1987–2013, doi:10.5194/essd-10-1987-2018, 2018.

Johansson, L., Jalkanen, J. P., Kukkonen, J. (2017). Global assessment of shipping emissions in 2015 on a high spatial and temporal resolution. Atmospheric Environment, 167, 403-415. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2017.08.042

Jalkanen, J. P., Johansson, L., Kukkonen, J., Brink, A., Kalli, J., Stipa, T. (2012). Extension of an assessment model of ship traffic exhaust emissions for particulate matter and carbon monoxide. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 12(5), 2641-2659. doi:10.5194/acp-12-2641-2012

Conditions of use

Users of the data are obliged to acknowledge the source of the data with a reference to the EDGAR website (link), to Muntean et al. (2026, in preparation) and to the DOI (link).

Co-authorship and involvement of the EDGAR Team in the emission data analysis is highly appreciated. User's comments and requests can be sent via email (JRC-EDGAR@ec.europa.eu) to the authors.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are purely those of the authors and may not be regarded as an official position of the European Commission or of any other research institutions contributing to this work; full details are provided at https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/disclaimer.

How to cite

Muntean, M., Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Pagani, F., Banja, M., (2026): EDGAR v8.1 Global Unintentional POPs Emissions. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Contacts

For more information or data: JRC-EDGAR@ec.europa.eu