Global Gridded Daily CO$_2$ Emissions

TL;DR

This paper introduces GRACED, a high-resolution, near-real-time global dataset of daily CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and cement production, enabling detailed monitoring of emission changes across sectors and time.

Contribution

The study presents the first high-resolution, daily global CO2 emission dataset combining multiple data sources for near-real-time monitoring.

Findings

Revealed sector-specific emission changes between 2019 and 2020.

Demonstrated the dataset's ability to track emission rebounds post-COVID-19.

Enabled insights into the spatial and temporal dynamics of fossil CO2 emissions.

Abstract

Precise and high-resolution carbon dioxide (CO$_2$) emission data is of great importance of achieving the carbon neutrality around the world. Here we present for the first time the near-real-time Global Gridded Daily CO$_2$ Emission Datasets (called GRACED) from fossil fuel and cement production with a global spatial-resolution of 0.1$^\circ$ by 0.1$^\circ$ and a temporal-resolution of 1-day. Gridded fossil emissions are computed for different sectors based on the daily national CO$_2$ emissions from near real time dataset (Carbon Monitor), the spatial patterns of point source emission dataset Global Carbon Grid (GID), Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) and spatiotemporal patters of satellite nitrogen dioxide (NO$_2$) retrievals. Our study on the global CO$_2$ emissions responds to the growing and urgent need for high-quality, fine-grained near-real-time CO2 emissions estimates to support global emissions monitoring across various spatial scales. We show the spatial patterns of emission changes for power, industry, residential consumption, ground transportation, domestic and international aviation, and international shipping sectors between 2019 and 2020. This help us to give insights on the relative contributions of various sectors and provides a fast and fine-grained overview of where and when fossil CO$_2$ emissions have decreased and rebounded in response to emergencies (e.g. COVID-19) and other disturbances of human activities than any previously published dataset. As the world recovers from the pandemic and decarbonizes its energy systems, regular updates of this dataset will allow policymakers to more closely monitor the effectiveness of climate and energy policies and quickly adapt.