Environmental accounts. Air Emission Accounts
Second Quarter 2024
Main Results
- In terms of the annual rate, Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions fell by 0.8% in the second quarter of 2024. In the first quarter, they decreased by 3.6%.
- In quarter-on-quarter terms, GHG emissions fell by 3.7% in the second quarter of 2024 compared with 0.04% growth in the first quarter.
- The Spanish economy emitted 287.7 million tonnes of Greenhouse Gases in 2023, 5.5% less than in 2022.
More information
The INE publishes today for the first time quarterly estimates of Greenhouse Gas emissions in Spain, including a breakdown of emissions by economic activity and households as end consumers. The period for which information is offered covers all the quarters from the first quarter of 2010.
The main objective of this experimental set of statistics is to complement the information on the annual account of Air Emissions, offering faster and more frequent data that allow GHG emissions to be monitored. This in turn makes it possible to assess the trend of emissions.
It also includes the comparison between GHG emissions and the total of the European Union. Both estimates have an identical methodological basis endorsed by international organisations such as Eurostat, the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, the International Energy Agency, and the United Nations.
Thus, Spain is the third member state of the European Union to draw up these quarterly accounts, along with the Netherlands and Sweden. Eurostat performs the estimate of the rest of the countries of the European Union that do not produce this statistic.
This information will be included in the Environmental Indicators Panel produced by the INE. This experimental set of statistics began to be published in June of this year and includes 39 indicators such as Climate Change, the Circular Economy, Energy and Biodiversity.
In the second quarter of 2024, GHGs emitted by the Spanish economy fell by 3.7% compared with the first quarter, reaching 69,796.7 thousand tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The rate in the previous quarter was 0.04%.
In annual terms, in 2023, total GHG emissions reached 287.7 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, 5.5% less than in 2022.
Greenhouse gases
Quarter-on-quarter variation rates (%)
Looking at the different aggregates, in the second quarter of 2024 Households as final consumers were the ones that contributed the most to this decrease, with a decrease of 25.1%, due to the end-of-winter effect. On the other hand, the Supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning decreased its emissions by 13.6%, while Construction increased by 19.5%.
Year-on-year trend of GHGs
Greenhouse gas emissions decreased by 0.8% in the second quarter. This annual emissions rate was 2.8 points higher than that of Q3 2024 (-3.6%).
Greenhouse gases. Spain and European Union
Year-on-year variation rates (%)
The activity that reduced its GHG emissions the most in the second quarter was Industry, with a decrease of 7.8%, mainly due to the 32.4% decrease in Supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning. For their part, Households increased by 6.3% compared with the second quarter of 2023.
Comparative evolution with respect to the European Union as a whole
The experimental set of statistics presented here are part of a project for a quarterly estimate of GHG emissions for the entire European Union (EU27) that is being carried out by Eurostat, in coordination with international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, the International Energy Association and the United Nations Statistics Division.
In this way, the estimates for the Spanish economy are integrated into the quarterly publication carried out by Eurostat together with those of the rest of the countries of the European Union and which are released four months after the end of the reference quarter.
In the EU27 as a whole, GHG emissions decreased by 11.9% in the second quarter compared to the first. In Spain they fell by 3.7%.
In terms of the annual rate, emissions in the EU27 fell by 2.6% (-0.8% in Spain). As in our country, the activity that most reduced emissions in the EU was Supply of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning.
Greenhouse gases. Spain and European Union1
Year-on-year variation rates (%)
1 Eurostat makes the quarterly estimate of GHG emissions for all countries of the European Union, except for Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden
Data revisions and updates
The data published today are provisional and will be revised when the next quarter's data is released. All the results of this operation are available at INEbase.
Methodological note
The objective of the Environmental Accounts (EA) is to integrate environmental information into the central system of National Accounts in a coherent way. They include a set of satellite accounts, which are compiled using the accounting forms applicable to the different sectoral and territorial areas, with a major presence of physical data. They display the interactions among the economy, households and environmental factors.
This operation will use statistical and econometric methods developed from the National Accounts approach, in order to obtain quarterly data on greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the annual publication, so as to provide more timely data (t+4 months) on the evolution of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Quarterly Air Emissions Account is constructed from a set of aggregated indicators on the origin and destination of pollutant emissions into the atmosphere, derived from a wide variety of statistical operations, each of which is subject to its own availability and revision schedule. This means that the estimates of the aggregates are subject to a revision process for the whole series of results to ensure that the estimation methods are kept up to date.
For further information, please consult the technical project.
INE statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics. More information on Quality at INE and the Code of Best Practices.
For further information see
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