DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15016289
title: The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series (1750-2023) v2.6.1

description: Recommended citation

Gütschow, J.; Busch, D.; Pflüger, M. (2025): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series v2.6.1 (1750-2023). zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15016289.

Gütschow, J.; Jeffery, L.; Gieseke, R.; Gebel, R.; Stevens, D.; Krapp, M.; Rocha, M. (2016): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 8, 571-603, doi:10.5194/essd-8-571-2016

Content



Use of the dataset and full description

Abstract

Support

Sources

Files included in the dataset

Notes

Data format description (columns)

References

Changelog


Abstract

The PRIMAP-hist dataset combines several published datasets to create a comprehensive set of greenhouse gas emission pathways for every country and Kyoto gas, covering the years 1750 to 2023, and almost all UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) member states as well as most non-UNFCCC territories. The data resolves the main IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2006 categories. For CO2, CH4, and N2O subsector data for Energy, Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), and Agriculture are available. The "country reported data priority" (CR) scenario of the PRIMAP-hist datset prioritizes data that individual countries report to the UNFCCC.

For developed countries, AnnexI in terms of the UNFCCC, this is the data submitted anually in the "National Inventory Submissions". Until 2023 data was submitted in the "Common Reporting Format" (CRF). Since 2024 the new "Common Reporting Tables" (CRT) are used. For developing countries, non-AnnexI in terms of the UNFCCC, we use the "Biannial Transparency Reports" (BTR) which mostly come with data also using the "Common Reporting Tables". We also use older data available through the UNFCCC DI portal (di.unfccc.int) and additional country submissions from "Biannial Update Reports" (BUR), "National Communications" (NC), and "National Inventory Reports" (NIR) read from pdf and where available xls(x) or csv files. For a list of these submissions please see below. For South Korea the 2023 official GHG inventory has not yet been submitted to the UNFCCC but is included in PRIMAP-hist. PRIMAP-hist also includes official data for Taiwan which is not recognized as a party to the UNFCCC. We have mostly replaced the official data that has not been submitted to the UNFCCC used in v2.6 as countries have now submitted their data in CRT format, but had to make some exceptions as the CRT data was not usable for all countries.

Gaps in the country reported data are filled using third party data such as CDIAC, EI (fossil CO2), Andrew cement emissions data (cement), FAOSTAT (agriculture), and EDGAR 2024 (all sectors for CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3, except energy CO2). Lower priority data are harmonized to higher priority data in the gap-filling process.

For the third party priority time series gaps in the third party data are filled from country reported data sources.

Data for earlier years which are not available in the above mentioned sources are sourced from EDGAR-HYDE, CEDS, and RCP (N2O only) historical emissions.

The v2.4 release of PRIMAP-hist reduced the time-lag from 2 to 1 years for the October release. Thus the present version 2.6.1 includes data for 2023. For energy CO2 growth rates from the EI Statistical Review of World Energy are used to extend the country reported (CR) or CDIAC (TP) data to 2023. For CO2 from cement production Andrew cement data are used. For other gases and sectors we use EDGAR 2024 data. In a few cases we have to rely on numerical methods to estimate emissions for 2023.

Version 2.6.1 of the PRIMAP-hist dataset does not include emissions from Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) in the main file. LULUCF data are included in the file with increased number of significant digits and have to be used with care as they are constructed from different sources using different methodologies and are not harmonized.

The PRIMAP-hist v2.6.1 dataset is an updated version of

Gütschow, J.; Pflüger, M.; Busch, D. (2024): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series v2.6 (1750-2023). zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13752654.

The Changelog indicates the most important changes. You can also check the issue tracker on github.com/JGuetschow/PRIMAP-hist for additional information on issues found after the release of the dataset. Detailed per country information is available from the detailed changelog which is available on the primap.org website and on zenodo.

Use of the dataset and full description

Before using the dataset, please read this document and the article describing the methodology, especially the section on uncertainties and the section on limitations of the method and use of the dataset.

Gütschow, J.; Jeffery, L.; Gieseke, R.; Gebel, R.; Stevens, D.; Krapp, M.; Rocha, M. (2016): The PRIMAP-hist national historical emissions time series, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 8, 571-603, doi:10.5194/essd-8-571-2016

Please notify us (johannes.guetschow@climate-resource.com) if you use the dataset so that we can keep track of how it is used and take that into consideration when updating and improving the dataset.

When using this dataset or one of its updates, please cite the DOI of the precise version of the dataset used and also the data description article which this dataset is supplement to (see above). Please consider also citing the relevant original sources when using the PRIMAP-hist dataset. See the full citations in the References section further below.

Since version 2.3 we use the data formats developed for the PRIMAP2 climate policy analysis suite: PRIMAP2 on GitHub. The data are published both in the interchange format which consists of a csv file with the data and a yaml file with additional metadata and the native NetCDF based format. For a detailed description of the data format we refer to the PRIMAP2 documentation.

We have also included files with more than three significant digits. These files are mainly aimed at people doing policy analysis using the country reported data scenario (HISTCR). Using the high precision data they can avoid questions on discrepancies with the reported data. The uncertainties of emissions data do not justify the additional significant digits and they might give a false sense of accuracy, so please use this version of the dataset with extra care.

Support

If you encounter possible errors or other things that should be noted, please check our issue tracker at github.com/JGuetschow/PRIMAP-hist and report your findings there. Please use the tag "v2.6.1" in any issue you create regarding this dataset.

If you need support in using the dataset or have any other questions regarding the dataset, please contact johannes.guetschow@climate-resource.com.

Climate Resource makes this data available CC BY 4.0 licence. Free support is limited to simple questions and non-commercial users. We also provide additional data, and data support services to clients wanting more frequent updates, additional metadata or to integrate these datasets into their workflows. Get in touch at contact@climate-resource.com if you are interested.

Sources



Global CO2 emissions from cement production v250226 data, paper: Andrew(2025), Andrew (2019)

EI Statistical Review of World Energy website: Energy Institute (2024)

CDIAC data: Hefner and Marland (2023), data: Hefner (2024), paper: Gilfillan and Marland (2021)

CEDS: data: Hoesly et al. (2020), paper:  Hoesly et al. (2018)

EDGAR 2024: data/website: European Commission, European Commision, JRC (2024), report: European Commission. Joint Research Centre & IEA. (2024)

EDGAR-HYDE 1.4 data: Van Aardenne et al. (2001), Olivier and Berdowski (2001)

FAOSTAT database data: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2024)

RCP historical data data, paper: Meinshausen et al. (2011)

UNFCCC National Communications and National Inventory Reports for developing countries available from the UNFCCC DI portal website, data: UNFCCC (2024e), Pflüger and Gütschow (2024), github

UNFCCC Bnnial Update Reports, National Communications, and National Inventory Reports for developing countries website-BURs, website-NCs, data: UNFCCC (2024d), UNFCCC (2024b).  



Notes:



Not all BUR and NC submissions are included as reading the data is time consuming and not all submission contain sufficient data to be used in PRIMAP-hist.

Not all submissions included in PRIMAP-hist are available in the github repository as we do not (yet) have code that we can publish for all submissions.

No submissions have been added for PRIMAP-hist v2.6.1





UNFCCC First Biannial Transparency Reports website, [data] UNFCCC (2025)



Notes:



For a list of added submissions see section "Data source updates (v2.6.1)" in the changelog in the pdf data description. 





UNFCCC Common Reporting Format (CRF) website, paper, data (24-01-08): UNFCCC (2024c) (processed as described in Jeffery et al. (2018))

Official country repositories (non-UNFCCC)



Belarus: Greenhouse gas statistics (1990-2022) website: National Statistical Committee of theRepublic of Belarus (2024)

EU, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland: National emissions reported to the UNFCCC and to the EU Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism, April 2024 website: European Environment Agency(2024)

South Korea: 2023 Inventory website, data: Republic of Korea (2023)

Taiwan / Republic of China: 2023 Inventory website, data: Republic of China - EnvironmentalProtection Administration (2023)




For the pre-1990 LULUCF time-series we use the following additional data sources:



Houghton land use CO2 website: Houghton (2008)

HYDE land cover data website: Klein Goldewijk et al. (2010), Klein Goldewijk et al. (2011)

SAGE Global Potential Vegetation Dataset website: Ramankutty and Foley (1999)

FAO Country Boundaries website: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations(2015)


 

Files included in the dataset

For each dataset we have three files: the .nc file contains the data and metadata in the native PRIMAP2 netCDF based format. The .csv file contains the data in a csv format following the specifications of the PRIMAP2 interchange format. The metadata for the interchange format file is included in the .yaml file.



Guetschow-et-al-2025-PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_final_13-Mar-2025.X: The main dataset with numerical extrapolation of all time series to 2023 and three significant digits.

Guetschow-et-al-2025-PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_final_no_extrap_13-Mar-2025.X: Variant without numerical extrapolation of missing values and not including the country groups mentioned in section ["area (ISO3)"] (three significant digits).

Guetschow-et-al-2025-PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_final_no_rounding_13-Mar-2025.X: The main dataset with numerical extrapolation of all time series to 2023 and eleven significant digits.

Guetschow-et-al-2025-PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_final_no_extrap_no_rounding_13-Mar-2025.X: Variant without numerical extrapolation of missing values and not including the country groups mentioned in section ["area (ISO3)"] (eleven significant digits).

PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_data-description.pdf: Data description including changelog.

PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_updated_figures.pdf: Updated figures from the PRIMAP-hist paper published in ESSD.

changes_PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_final_nr_to_v2.6_final_nr.xlsx: xlsx file which lists relative changes per country, gas and main sector for 2005, 2015, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 1990-2023 (cumulative) from v2.5.1 to v2.6 (comparison between latest version and current version).

changes_PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1_final_nr_CR_to_TP.xlsx: xlsx file which lists relative differences per country, gas and main sector for 2005, 2015, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 1990-2023 (cumulative) between country reported priority and third party priority scenarios.

changelog_v2.6_final_to_v2.6.1_final.zip: Detailed changelog in html format containing plots and a breakdown of changes to sectors and gases for all countries. Country specific notes ar also included. To use the changelog locally unpack the zip file and open the file in the "html" directory in your browser. The changelog is also available on the primap.org website.


Notes



Emissions from international aviation and shipping are not included in the dataset.

Emissions from Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) are not included in the main version of this dataset. They are included in the version without rounding as users need to take extra care when using LULUCF data because changes some of the year-to-year changes in the data come from using different sources or methodology changes within a source rather than changes in actual emissions.


Data format description

The PRIMAP-hist data in the comma-separated values (CSV) files is formatted consistently with the PRIMAP2 interchange format.

The data contained in each column are as follows:

"source"

Name of the data source. Here: PRIMAP-hist_v2.6.1 with suffixes _ne for no extrapolation and _nr for no rounding.

"scenario (PRIMAP)"



HISTCR: In this scenario country-reported data (CRT, BUR / NIR / NC / UNFCCCDI) are prioritized over third-party data (CDIAC, FAO, Andrew, EDGAR, BP).

HISTTP: In this scenario third-party data (CDIAC, FAO, Andrew, EDGAR, BP) are prioritized over country-reported data (CRT, BUR / NIR / NC / UNFCCCDI)


"provenance"

Provenance of the data. Here: "derived" as it is a composite source.

"country"

ISO 3166 three-letter country codes or custom codes for groups:




Code
Region description


EARTH
Aggregated emissions for all countries.


ANNEXI
Annex I Parties to the Convention


NONANNEXI
Non-Annex I Parties to the Convention


AOSIS
Alliance of Small Island States


BASIC
BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China)


EU27BX
European Union post Brexit


LDC
Least Developed Countries


UMBRELLA
Umbrella Group




Table: Additional "country" codes.

"category"

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2006 categories for emissions. Some aggregate sectors have been added to the hierarchy. These begin with the prefix M.




Code
Description
Gases covered


M.0.EL
National Total excluding LULUCF
all


1
Energy
CO2, CH4, N2O


1.A
Fuel Combustion Activities
CO2, CH4, N2O


1.B
Fugitive Emissions from Fuels
CO2, CH4, N2O


1.B.1
Solid Fuels
CO2, CH4, N2O


1.B.2
Oil and Natural Gas
CO2, CH4, N2O


1.B.3
Other Emissions from Energy Production
CO2, CH4, N2O


1.C
Carbon Dioxide Transport and Storage
CO2


2
Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU)
CO2, CH4, N2O, f-gases


2.A
Mineral Industry
CO2


2.B
Chemical Industry
CO2, CH4, N2O


2.C
Metal Industry
CO2, CH4, N2O


2.D
Non-Energy Prod. from Fuels and Solvent Use
CO2, CH4, N2O


2.E
Electronics Industry
N2O (f-gases emitted but not resolved)


2.F


Product uses as Substitutes for Ozone Depleting Substances 

(no data available as the category is only used for fluorinated gases which are only resolved at the level of category 2)

--


2.G
Other Product Manufacture and Use
CO2, CH4, N2O


2.H
Other
CO2, CH4, N2O


M.AG
Agriculture, sum of 3.A and M.AG.ELV
CO2, CH4, N2O


3.A
Livestock
CH4, N2O


M.AG.ELV
Agriculture excluding Livestock
CO2, CH4, N2O


4
Waste
CO2, CH4, N2O


5
Other
CO2, CH4, N2O




Table: Category descriptions using IPCC 2006 terminology.

The categories are organized in a hierarchy where children of each category sum to the parent category. The full IPCC2006 category hierarchy contains many more subcategories, but data availability is not sufficient to resolve the full IPCC category tree in PRIMAP-hist. However, we will regularly assess if the available data allows for resolving addition subcategories. The categories currently resoved by PRIMAP-hist are organized as follows.    M.0.EL Total emissions excluding LULUCF    ├1 Energy    │├1.A Fuel Combustion Activities           │├1.B Fugitive Emissions from Fuels    ││├1.B.1 Solid Fuels    ││├1.B.2 Oil and Natural Gas    ││╰1.B.3 Other Emissions from Energy Production    │╰1.C Carbon Dioxide Transport and Storage    ├2 Industrial Processes and Product Use    │├2.A Mineral Industry    │├2.B Chemical Industry    │├2.C Metal Industry    │├2.D Non-Energy Products from Fuels and Solvent Use    │├2.E Electronics Industry    │├2.F Product Uses as Substitutes for Ozone Depleting Substances    │├2.G Other Product Manufacture and Use    │╰2.H Other    ├4 Waste    ├5 Other    ╰M.AG Agriculture     ├3.A Livestock     ╰M.AG.ELV Agriculture excluding LivestockThe "no_rounding" version of the dataset additionally contains data for the "Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry" sector and sectors sums including this sectors




Code
Description
Gases covered


0
National Total including LULUCF
CO2, CH4, N2O, f-gases


3
Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU)
CO2, CH4, N2O


M.LULUCF
Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry
CO2, CH4, N2O




Table: Additional category descriptions using IPCC 2006 terminology.PRIMAP-hist uses a distinction between agriculture and Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry which are combined into the AFOLU sector in IPCC2006 categories. Thus, in contrast to the standard IPCC 2006 categories, category  3 "Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use" is subdivided as follows:    3 Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use    ├M.AG Agriculture    │├3.A Livestock    │╰M.AG.ELV Agriculture excluding Livestock    ╰M.LULUCF Land Use, Land Use Change, and ForestryWhere a national total including LULUCF is reported, it is calculated as the sum of "M.0.EL Total emissions excluding LULUCF" and "M.LULUCF Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry":    0 National Total    ├M.0.EL Total emissions excluding LULUCF    │├1 Energy    │├2 Industrial Processes and Product Use    │├4 Waste    │├5 Other    │╰M.AG Agriculture    ╰M.LULUCF Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry"entity"Gas baskets using global warming potentials (GWP) from the Second Assessment Report (SAR), Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).




Code
Description


CH4
Methane


CO2
Carbon Dioxide


N2O
Nitrous Oxide


HFCS (SARGWP100)
Hydrofluorocarbons (SAR)


HFCS (AR4GWP100)
Hydrofluorocarbons (AR4)


HFCS (AR5GWP100)
Hydrofluorocarbons (AR5)


HFCS (AR6GWP100)
Hydrofluorocarbons (AR6)


PFCS (SARGWP100)
Perfluorocarbons (SAR)


PFCS (AR4GWP100)
Perfluorocarbons (AR4)


PFCS (AR5GWP100)
Perfluorocarbons (AR5)


PFCS (AR6GWP100)
Perfluorocarbons (AR6)


SF6
Sulfur Hexafluoride


NF3
Nitrogen Trifluoride


FGASES (SARGWP100)
Fluorinated Gases (SAR): HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3


FGASES (AR4GWP100)
Fluorinated Gases (AR4): HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3


FGASES (AR5GWP100)
Fluorinated Gases (AR5): HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3


FGASES (AR6GWP100)
Fluorinated Gases (AR6): HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3


KYOTOGHG (SARGWP100)
Kyoto greenhouse gases (SAR)


KYOTOGHG (AR4GWP100)
Kyoto greenhouse gases (AR4)


KYOTOGHG (AR5GWP100)
Kyoto greenhouse gases (AR5)


KYOTOGHG (AR6GWP100)
Kyoto greenhouse gases (AR6)




Table: Gas categories and underlying global warming potentials

"unit"

Unit is either <substance> * gigagram / a where substance is the entity or for CO2 equivalent units CO2 * gigagram / a. The CO2-equivalent is calculated according to the global warming potential indicated by the entity (see above).

Remaining columns

Years from 1750-2023.

Changelog

For the changelog we refer to the pdf version of the data description available for download here

References

For the full references we refer to the references section and the pdf version of the data description available for download here.