2025
Over the past five decades, the world’s urban population has doubled, with nearly half of humanity now living in cities and towns. Understanding how this rapid urbanisation affects greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollutant emissions is essential for effective climate action.
This dataset presents global GHG emissions by settlement categories, combining information from the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) and the Global Human Settlements Layer (GHSL) developed within the GEO Human Planet Initiative. By integrating high-resolution spatial data (1 km × 1 km) with settlement typologies —from urban centres to rural areas— the dataset enables a systematic analysis of emission patterns across world regions and income groups over the past five decades.
The data are produced by downscaling national EDGAR emissions using advanced geospatial proxies derived from GHSL, population distribution, and sectoral activity data. This approach allows for a detailed mapping of where emissions occur, capturing both industrial point sources and residential emissions influenced by population density and climatic conditions.
Detailed information on the spatial proxies used in EDGAR and the downscaling methodology can be found in several scientific publications (Janssens-Maenhout et al., 2019; Crippa et al., 2021; Crippa et al., 2024).
Residential and road transport proxies were updated in June 2026 (Crippa et al., 2026.) Specifically, to capture subnational variability in residential energy use, we apply fuel-specific weighting factors to the population- and Heating Degree Days (HDD)-based spatial proxies. For road transport, the updated proxies capture the heterogeneous distribution of transport activity across road networks, improving the spatial representation of road transport emissions at the global scale.
| Sectors | IPCC 2006 |
|---|---|
| Power Industry - Power and heat generation plants (public & autoproducers) | 1A1a |
| Industry - Combustion for industrial manufacturing, industrial process emissions, fuel exploitation | 1A1b+ 1A1c+1A2+1B+2+5 |
| Buildings - Small scale non-industrial stationary combustion | 1A4+1A5 |
| Transport - Mobile combustion (road & rail & ship & aviation) | 1A3aii+1A3b+1A3c+1A3dii+1A3e |
| Agriculture - Agricultural soils, crop residues burning, enteric fermentation, manure management, indirect N2O emissions from agriculture | 3A+3C1b+3C2+3C3+3C4+3C5+3C6+3C7 |
| Waste - Solid waste disposal and waste water treatment | 4 |
| International shipping and aviation | 1A3ai+1A3di |
| Code | Description |
|---|---|
| UC | URBAN CENTRE grid cell (Cities) |
| UCL | URBAN CLUSTER grid cell (Towns and semi-dense areas) |
| RUR | RURAL grid cell (Rural) |
| OTH | Other grid cell |
| Code L1 | Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
| UC | SMOD30 | URBAN CENTRE grid cell |
| UCL | SMOD23 | DENSE URBAN CLUSTER grid cell |
| SMOD22 | SEMI-DENSE URBAN CLUSTER grid cell | |
| SMOD21 | SUBURBAN OR PERI-URBAN grid cell | |
| RUR | SMOD13 | RURAL CLUSTER grid cell |
| SMOD12 | LOW DENSITY RURAL grid cell | |
| SMOD11 | VERY LOW DENSITY RURAL grid cell | |
| OTH | SMOD10 | WATER grid cell |
Based on the EDGAR_2025_GHG emission gridmaps up to 2024 (Crippa et al. 2025), SETTLEMENT TYPE emissions by sector and country are extracted. Residential and road transport proxies were updated in June 2026, as explained in Crippa et al., 2026.
SETTLEMENT TYPE definitions are based on GHS-SMOD.
Based on the EDGAR_2025_GHG emission gridmaps up to 2024 (Crippa et al. 2025). Residential and road transport proxies were updated in June 2026, as explained in Crippa et al., 2026.
For each substance annual gridmaps (2024) are provided. Emission gridmaps are expressed in ton substance / 0.01degree x 0.01degree / year for the GeoTiff files.
Cohesion in Europe towards 2050. Eighth report on economic, social and territorial cohesion. Publications Office of the European Union, doi: 10.2776/624081, 2022. http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/information/cohesion-report
9th Cohesion Report shows that Cohesion Policy continues to narrow the gaps in EU regions and Member States. Publications Office of the European Union, doi:10.2776/264833, 2024. (link)
Eurostat regional yearbook - 2024 edition, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, doi:10.2785/174221, 2024.
EI, Energy Institute, 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, 2025, https://www.energyinst.org/statistical-review, Last access: July 2025.
FAOSTAT (2025), Statistics Division of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN: www.fao.org/faostat, Last access May 2025.
Global Flaring and Methane Reduction Partnership (GFMR), 2012-2024 data for gas consumption for flaring, 2025, https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/gasflaringreduction/global-flaring-data#indicators-by-country, Last Access: June 2025.
IATA (2025), International Air Transport Association Statistics, https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/pressroom/fact-sheets/industry-statistics, 2025.
IEA World Energy Balances - 2024 Edition, www.iea.org, All rights reserved, as modified by Joint Research Centre, European Commission, 2024a.
IEA Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy - 2024 Edition, www.iea.org, 2024b.
IEA World energy balances: IEA family and beyond, April 2025 Edition, www.iea.org.
IFA (2025), Urea consumption (updates 2010-2022) and production (updates 2020) statistics, 2025, www.ifastat.org/.
USGS, USGS Commodity Statistics (May 2025), https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/commodity-statistics-and-information, 2025.
WB (2025), data of GDP PPP, (constant 2017 international $) (expressed in 1000 US dollar, and adjusted to the Purchasing Power Parity of 2017) for 1990-2024, World Bank, July 2025.
World Steel Association, (worldsteel) (2025), Steel Statistical Yearbook 2025, https://worldsteel.org, 2025.
Janssens-Maenhout, G., Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Muntean, M., Schaaf, E., Dentener, F., Bergamaschi, P., Pagliari, V., Olivier, J. G. J., Peters, J. A. H. W., van Aardenne, J. A., Monni, S., Doering, U., Petrescu, A. M. R., Solazzo, E., and Oreggioni, G. D.: EDGAR v4.3.2 Global Atlas of the three major greenhouse gas emissions for the period 1970–2012, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 11, 959–1002, doi:10.5194/essd-11-959-2019, 2019.
Monica Crippa, Diego Guizzardi, Enrico Pisoni, Efisio Solazzo, Antoine Guion, Marilena Muntean, Aneta Florczyk, Marcello Schiavina, Michele Melchiorri, Andres Fuentes Hutfilter: Global anthropogenic emissions in urban areas: patterns, trends, and challenges, Environ. Res. Lett. 16 074033, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac00e2, 2021.
Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Pagani, F., Banja, M., Muntean, M. et al., GHG emissions of all world countries - 2025 Report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025, doi:10.2760/9816914, JRC143227.
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, 2024.
Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Pisoni, E., Ciarlantini, S., Melchiorri, M., Schiavina, M., Hormigos Feliu, C., Dijkstra, L. GHG, NOx and PM2.5 emissions in cities, towns and rural areas. 2026, submitted.
©European Union 2025, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG database, comprising IEA-EDGAR CO2, EDGAR CH4, EDGAR N2O and EDGAR F-gases version EDGAR_2025_GHG (2025). Unless otherwise noted, all material owned by the European Union is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. This means that reuse is allowed, provided that appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated.
All emissions, except for CO2 emissions from fuel combustion, are from the EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG database comprising IEA-EDGAR CO2, EDGAR CH4, EDGAR N2O and EDGAR F-gases version EDGAR_2025_GHG (2025).
IEA-EDGAR CO2, a component of the EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG database version EDGAR_2025_GHG (2025) including or based on data from IEA (2024) Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy, www.iea.org/data-and-statistics, as modified by the Joint Research Centre.
IEA-EDGAR CO2 (v4) data are based on data from IEA (2024) Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy, www.iea.org/data-and-statistics, as modified by the Joint Research Centre, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Users of the IEA-EDGAR CO2 data should contact the IEA at compliance@iea.org if they wish to use such data outside the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.
Co-authorship and involvement of the EDGAR Community, which includes the IEA for fossil CO2 emissions, in the emission data analysis is highly appreciated. User's comments and requests can be sent via email to the authors. For IEA data, please refer to emissions@iea.org.
Disclaimer: Without prejudice to the rules applying to the information and data made available by the European Union (in particular the European Commission), as available here and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the European Union ("the Union") and the International Energy Agency ("IEA") disclaim all responsibility or liability in relation to any and all information distributed, published or otherwise made available by them on the EDGAR website, in this dataset and/or in this publication. The Union and the IEA provide any such information as-is and as-available, and make no representations, conditions or warranties of any kind concerning this information, whether express, implied, statutory, or other (including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of title, non-infringement, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose). To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall the Union or the IEA be liable to any third party on any legal theory (including, without limitation, negligence) or otherwise for any direct, special, indirect, incidental, consequential, punitive, exemplary, or other losses, costs, expenses, or damages arising out of the distribution, publication, making available or use of any such information.
Crippa, M., Guizzardi, D., Ciarlantini, S., Pagani, F., Banja, M., Muntean, M., Pisoni, E.: EDGAR_GHG_by_settlement_2026, dataset, https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edgar_smod, 2026.
EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, a collaboration between the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), the International Energy Agency (IEA), and comprising IEA-EDGAR CO2, EDGAR CH4, EDGAR N2O, EDGAR F-GASES version EDGAR_2025_GHG (2025) European Commission, JRC (Datasets). The complete citation of the EDGAR Community GHG Database is available in the 'Sources and References' section.
IEA-EDGAR CO2, a component of the EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG database version EDGAR_2025_GHG (2025) including or based on data from IEA (2024) Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy, www.iea.org/data-and-statistics, as modified by the Joint Research Centre.
Users of the data are obliged to acknowledge the source of the data also with reference to the EDGAR_2025_GHG (2025) website (link) and/or relevant reports.
For more information or data: JRC-EDGAR@ec.europa.eu.
For IEA data, please refer to emissions@iea.org or compliance@iea.org for terms questions.