Programming language

Engineering

Economics

Fossil fuel

Accounting

Archaeology

Scope (computer science)

Greenhouse gas

Geology

Climate change

China

Geography

Computer science

Environmental science

Oceanography

Natural resource economics

Waste management

Scientific Data

China is the world’s top energy consumer and CO 2 emitter, accounting for 30% of global emissions. Compiling an accurate accounting of China’s CO 2 emissions is the first step in implementing reduction policies. However, no annual, officially published emissions data exist for China. The current emissions estimated by academic institutes and scholars exhibit great discrepancies. The gap between the different emissions estimates is approximately equal to the total emissions of the Russian Federation (the 4th highest emitter globally) in 2011. In this study, we constructed the time-series of CO 2 emission inventories for China and its 30 provinces. We followed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions accounting method with a territorial administrative scope. The inventories include energy-related emissions (17 fossil fuels in 47 sectors) and process-related emissions (cement production). The first version of our dataset presents emission inventories from 1997 to 2015. We will update the dataset annually. The uniformly formatted emission inventories provide data support for further emission-related research as well as emissions reduction policy-making in China.

China CO2 emission accounts 1997–2015