Nov 28 2006
Estimates are published today of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for 2004 for all UK local authorities and Government Office Regions.
A summary and the full report are available from the e-Digest of Environmental Statistics on the Defra web site at www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/globatmos/galocalghg.htm
Key points
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These estimates are an improvement on the first set for 2003 published last year. However the results should continue to be used with caution, as they are still experimental statistics under development and there are known limitations in the estimates.
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Overall, 44 per cent of end user emissions assigned to local authority areas are attributed to the industrial, commercial and public sector, 29 per cent to the domestic sector, and 28 per cent to road transport.
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There are wide local variations on this mainly because of the economy and geography of different local areas.
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In about one third of authorities, domestic sector end user emissions are greater than the emissions from the industrial, commercial and public sector.
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In the largest authorities, end user emissions from the domestic sector alone (from consumption of electricity and other fuels, but excluding travel) can amount to more than one million tonnes of carbon dioxide
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Overall about 48 per cent of domestic end user emissions come from gas use, 41 per cent are due to electricity consumption, and 10 per cent come from the use of other fuels
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Domestic emissions are between 2.5 and 2.9 tonnes per person per year in about half of local authority areas.
These estimates are intended as a resource to help those working on local or regional inventories as part of their efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
On their own they cannot give all the information necessary to plan and monitor the progress of all local emissions reduction initiatives, or yet act as meaningful ‘performance indicators’ for local areas. This may need additional monitoring at local level.
The aim is to produce the most reliable and consistent possible breakdown of CO2 emissions across the country, using nationally available data sets.
Where possible estimates are based on ‘real’ local data such as electricity and gas consumption, and emissions from sites where pollution is regulated. Emissions from electricity generation are allocated according to where electricity is actually consumed by householders and businesses, rather than where power stations are located. A second set of figures for the first time takes this concept a stage further by re-allocating emissions from the rest of the energy production sector (for example refineries) to users as well. The remaining emissions are assigned to local areas on the basis of other local information such as traffic, population, employment and data on household fuel types.
All emissions included in the national inventory are covered, except domestic aviation, shipping and the offshore oil industry, for which there is no obvious basis for allocation to local areas.