Accredited official statistics

Emissions of air pollutants

Name: Emissions of air pollutants
Creator: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Published: 2012-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

An annual publication covering the emissions of some important air pollutants.

From:

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

Published:

18 December 2012

Last updated:

12 February 2026

Show all updates

12 February 2026
Annual update.
13 March 2025
This data was revised on March 13th 2025 to apply the latest, improved domestic combustion methodology across all sources. This correction has impacted domestic combustion emissions across the time series causing a substantial reduction to sulphur dioxide emissions and a minor increase to NMVOC emissions.
10 March 2025
An unscheduled correction will be made to this data on March 13th, due to inconsistencies in applying the latest and improved domestic combustion methodology across all sources. This correction affects only sulphur dioxide and NMVOC emissions from domestic combustion.
13 February 2025
Annual update.
19 February 2024
Link to 2021 data amended.
14 February 2024
Amended text in paragraph on particulate matter in the summary attachment.
14 February 2024
Annual update.
12 December 2023
Broken link fixed.
22 February 2023
Link to summary page added in each HTML attachment.
14 February 2023
Figures for 2021 Statistical release published
18 February 2022
Opening paragraph removed. Also one sentence amended in the sulphur dioxide (SO2) attachment.
14 February 2022
New annual publication.
26 February 2021
The URLs to each HTML page within this release were updated to remove legacy components that were initially included in the URLs when the publication was first published in the HTML format last year. The new URLs will ensure that no further changes to the URLs will be required in future updates to the publication.
12 February 2021
URL link amended.
12 February 2021
Typo.
12 February 2021
New publication for 2021 containing data from 1970 to 2019 inclusive.
24 September 2020
Amended PDF attachment now with complete data uploaded and republished.
23 September 2020
Various amendments made to figures.
23 September 2020
This publication has been updated to address accessibility issues. Changes include modification of alt text, improvement to the colour contrast of figures, removal of merged cells in tables, and tweaks to formatting such as subscripting and HTML links. Some of the text has been reworded to improve clarity and understanding, but no changes have been made to the statistics since the initial publication in February.
14 February 2020
Amendments to text on emissions of air pollutants statistical release page.
15 February 2019
Annual update.
15 February 2018
Annual update.
21 December 2016
Annual update to publication.
17 December 2015
Annual update figures published 1970 to 2014
18 December 2014
Latest statistical release 1970 to 2013.
18 December 2013
Figures for 2012 published
1 August 2013
added note on Devolved Administrations inventory release is September.
18 December 2012
First published.

Documents

Emissions of air pollutants in the UK - Summary

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Emissions of air pollutants in the UK - Background

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Emissions of air pollutants in the UK – Particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5)

HTML

Emissions of air pollutants in the UK – Nitrogen oxides (NOx)

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Emissions of air pollutants in the UK – Ammonia (NH3)

HTML

Emissions of air pollutants in the UK – Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs)

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Emissions of air pollutants in the UK – Sulphur dioxide (SO2)

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Emissions of air pollutants in the UK – Compliance with Code of Practice for Statistics

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Methods and quality processes for UK air pollutant emissions statistics

PDF, 1020 KB, 88 pages

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Details

This publication provides estimates of UK emissions of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5), nitrogen oxides, ammonia, non-methane volatile organic compounds and sulphur dioxide.

These statistics are used to monitor progress against the UK’s emissions reduction targets for air pollutants. Emissions reductions in the UK contribute to improvements in air quality alongside a number of other factors. For more information on air quality data and information please refer to the air quality and emissions statistics GOV.UK page.

The National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory website contains information on anthropogenic UK emissions and compilation methods for a wide range of air pollutants; as well as hosting a number of reports including the Devolved Administrations’ Air Quality Pollutant Inventories.

The methodology to estimate emissions is continuously reviewed and developed to take account of new data sources, emission factors and modelling methods. This means the whole emissions time series from 1990 to the reporting year is revised annually.

Please note: Due to methodological updates and improvements which are routinely carried out each year, the data and trends discussed here are not directly comparable to those published in previous iterations of this Accredited Official Statistics release. More information can be found in the accompanying Methods Document. For year-on-year changes in emissions, the trends presented within this document and the accompanying statistical tables should be used.

If you do wish to see the impact of these methodological changes, you can access previous editions of this publication via The National Archives or the links below. As it takes time to compile and analyse the data from many different sources, this statistic publication is produced with a 2-year delay from the reporting year, meaning that this year’s inventory represents the reporting year 2024.

As part of our ongoing commitment to compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics we wish to strengthen our engagement with users of air quality data and better understand how the data is used and the types of decisions that they inform. We invite users to register as a “user of Air Quality data”, so that we can retain your details, inform you of any new releases of Emissions statistics and provide you with the opportunity to take part in user engagement activities that we may run. If you would like to register as a ‘user of air quality data’, please provide your details in the linked form.

Please email us with your feedback to help us make the publication more valuable to you.