Near-real-time estimates of daily CO2 emissions from 1500 cities worldwide

TL;DR

This paper introduces Carbon Monitor Cities, a near-real-time, high-resolution dataset of daily CO2 emissions for 1500 cities worldwide, covering multiple sectors and providing timely data for climate action and policy.

Contribution

It presents a new, comprehensive city-level CO2 emission dataset with daily resolution, covering 1500 cities across 46 countries, including low-income regions, and disaggregating five key sectors.

Findings

Dataset covers January 2019 to December 2021.

Uncertainty in estimates is approximately 21.7%.

Includes first emission estimates for many low-income cities.

Abstract

Building on near-real-time and spatially explicit estimates of daily carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, here we present and analyze a new city-level dataset of fossil fuel and cement emissions. Carbon Monitor Cities provides daily, city-level estimates of emissions from January 2019 through December 2021 for 1500 cities in 46 countries, and disaggregates five sectors: power generation, residential (buildings), industry, ground transportation, and aviation. The goal of this dataset is to improve the timeliness and temporal resolution of city-level emission inventories and includes estimates for both functional urban areas and city administrative areas that are consistent with global and regional totals. Comparisons with other datasets (i.e. CEADs, MEIC, Vulcan, and CDP) were performed, and we estimate the overall uncertainty to be 21.7%. Carbon Monitor Cities is a near-real-time, city-level emission dataset that includes cities around the world, including the first estimates for many cities in low-income countries. A more complete description of this dataset is published in Scientific Data (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01657-z).