The aim of these statistics is to provide the most reliable and consistent possible breakdown of CO2 emissions across the country, using nationally available data sets going back to 2005.
The main data sources are the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory and DECC’s National Statistics of energy consumption for local authority areas. All emissions included in the national inventory are covered, except aviation, shipping and military transport, for which there is no obvious basis for allocation to local areas.
- Statistical release: This publication provides a summary of local authority emissions statistics including UK emissions maps.
- Full dataset: this includes all the emissions that occur within the boundaries of each local authority
- Subset dataset: this includes emissions within the scope of each local authority but excludes certain emissions, which it has been considered local authorities are unable to directly influence
- Methodology summary: provides a summary of the methodology adopted to estimate carbon dioxide emissions at local level
- Technical report: describes in detail the methodology adopted to estimate carbon dioxide emissions at local level
- Employment based energy consumption mapping in the UK: outlines the methodology used to map emissions from smaller industrial and commercial sources
- Mapping Carbon Emissions & Removals for the Land Use, Land Use Change & Forestry (LULUCF) Sector: prepared by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) looking at LULUCF emissions and removals at the local authority level
- Pollution inventory: an extract of data used from the pollution inventory that is used in calculating local authority emissions
In addition, on the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (NAEI) website, interactive local authority level emissions maps are published on DECC’s behalf. These allow users to zoom in to any UK local authority and see the emissions for the area, and also identify the significant point sources, such as iron and steel plants. It is also possible to filter by different sectors, and view how emissions have changed across the time series.
Air pollution data are also available on a local authority basis which looks at a number of gases that cause air pollution. Carbon dioxide which is presented in the emissions reports above is also considered an air pollutant. A number of activities contribute to both air pollutant and carbon dioxide emissions. Other activities that contribute to carbon dioxide emissions do not contribute to air pollutant emissions and vice versa.
This is a National Statistics publication and complies with the code of practice for official statistics. Please check our frequently asked questions or email Climatechange.Statistics@decc.gsi.gov.uk if you have any questions or comments about the information on this page.