Summary:
CO2 emissions are one of the major contributors to global warming. The variety of emission sources and the nature of CO2 hinders estimating its concentration in real time and therefore to adopt flexible policies that contribute to its control and, ultimately, to reduce its effects. Spain is not exempted from this challenge and CO2 emissions are published only at the end of the year and as an aggregated value for the whole country, without recognising the existing differences between the regions (the so-called, Autonomous Communities). The recent COVID-19 pandemic is a clear example of the need of accurate and fast estimation methods so that policies can be tailored to the current status and not to a past one. This paper provides a method to estimate monthly emissions of CO2 for each AACC in Spain based on data that are published monthly by the relevant administrations. The paper discusses the approximations needed in the development of the method, predicts the drop in emissions due to the reduced industrial activity during the pandemic in Spain and provides the estimation of future emissions under three recovery scenarios after the pandemic.
Spanish layman's summary:
La estimación de la concentración de CO2 a tiempo real es compleja y dificulta adoptar políticas flexibles de control que permitan reducir sus efectos. Se desarrolla un método que permite estimar la cantidad de emisiones de CO2 en España casi a tiempo real, basado en información pública.
English layman's summary:
It is difficult to estimate CO2 concentration in real time and to adopt flexible policies to control the emissions and reduce their effects. This paper provides a method to estimate almost real-time monthly emissions of CO2 for Spanish AACC based on data published by the relevant administrations.
Keywords: Forecast; COVID-19; CO2; Emissions
JCR Impact Factor and WoS quartile: 11,072 - Q1 (2021); 9,700 - Q1 (2023)
DOI reference:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126425
Published on paper: May 2021.
Published on-line: February 2021.
Citation:
L.F. S. Merchante, D. Clar, A. Carnicero, F.J. López-Valdés, J.R. Jiménez-Octavio, Real-time CO2 emissions estimation in Spain and application to the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Cleaner Production. Vol. 296, pp. 126425-1 - 126425-11, May 2021. [Online: February 2021]
