Environmental physical accounts – Air emissions accounts (AEA) – 2008-2024

Istat releases on its data warehouse (theme ‘National accounts’, sub-theme ‘Environmental accounts’, section ’NAMEA air emissions’) data on Air emissions accounts (AEA) of the Italian economy for the years 2008-2023 and a provisional estimate of greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions for the year 2024 broken down by economic activity.

The 2008-2024 time series concern air emissionsof24 pollutantsby economic activities, classified in 64 industries and households(3consumption functions).

Air emissions accounts are compiled in accordance with EU Regulation 691/2011, as amended by EU Delegated Regulation 2022/125, and their consistency with national accounts data makes them suitable for integrated environmental-economic analyses.

Air emissions accounts are calculated starting from the national emission inventory annually produced by Istituto Superiore per la Ricerca e la Protezione Ambientale (Ispra).

Additional information disseminated by Istat are:

• a bridge table devoted to show the link between AEA air emissions totals and the totals calculated by Ispra and used for Italian Communications within the framework of international conventions: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP);
• emission intensity of production, value added and employment;
• the CO2 emission intensity of energy consumption by economic activities (theme ‘National Accounts’, sub-theme ‘Environmental Accounts’, section ‘Physical Energy Flow Accounts (PEFA)’).

In 2024, the Italian economy’s GHG emissions continue to decrease (-2,8% compared to the previous year), although with opposite contributions from production activities and households. Production activities emitted into the atmosphere 13,3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent less in 2024 compared to the previous year (-4.5%), while Households increased their emissions by 2.3 million tonnes (+2.2%), mainly due to own-account road transport.

The production activities that contributed most to the total reduction in 2024 emissions belong to the Industry sector, especially NACE D – Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (which reduces emissions by more than 10 million tonnes, -16.7% compared to 2023) and Manufacturing (especially NACE C19 – Manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products, with a reduction of 5.6%).

In the Services sector, the largest contribution to the reduction comes from NACE H50 – Water transport, while, except for a few cases, most production activities in the tertiary sector showed an increase in their emissions.

Please also note that Istat provides Eurostat with data on air emissions from road transport by economic activity (64 production activities and households). Data for the years 2008-2023 are published on the Eurostat data warehouse.

For more information, please refer to the metadata.

For information

Directorate for national accounts

Silvia Zannoni

ph. +39 06 46733109

zannoni@istat.it

Giusy Vetrella

ph. +39 06 4673.3236

vetrella@istat.it