The Center for Global Sustainability has published the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Analysis for the United States (GHGIA). The GHGIA provides critical national-level data on emissions sources and sinks of all major greenhouse gases, including quantities of specific greenhouse gases being emitted and across all economic sectors. The inventory covers updated annual data from 1990 through 2024 and is consistent with previous versions of the annual U.S. greenhouse gas inventory published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both the data and a report detailing the results are available for download on the CGS GHGIA website.
The report has grounded the data collection, analysis, and presentation in practices that enable comparability and continuity with past official U.S. inventories prepared by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The report adheres to good practice as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and adheres to international standards for transparency, accuracy, completeness, comparability, and consistency. Such information is critical for subnational governments, researchers, and businesses that rely on these data for their own internal processes, as well as to support international understanding of U.S. emission trends.
CGS Director Nate Hultman noted, “National inventories provide the basis for understanding both what is happening across national economies and insight into policy strategies that may be valuable now and into the future. In this context, it is critical for scientific, policy, and civil society communities to have access to robust, transparent, consistent, and regularly reported data. The GHGIA provides these critically needed data for the United States and it is our hope that this will support scientific and technical discussions, foster innovation and improvement in scientific and policy processes, and enhance learning across the global community.”
“Having robust, reliable, and transparently presented GHG data is a fundamental part of improving our understanding of GHG levels and trends, said Mausami Desai, the lead author of the report and dataset. “In addition, we have documented our work transparently and welcome discussions on improvements for the future. In this light, we hope the new CGS GHGIA provides a helpful contribution for our community.”
Bill Irving, also an author on the report, added, “Our new report and dataset draws on decades of development of good practice for inventories covering the geographical region of the United States. A key element of the GHGIA is therefore the continuity with previous versions of the U.S. GHG inventory done by the federal government as it allows easy comparison with past years. Going forward, CGS plans to build the community of partners and users of the GHGIA, and welcomes feedback on the report.”
Future work on the GHGIA will provide an opportunity to innovate and improve on methods and data for quantifying national and state-level emissions and sinks. Subnational inventory compilers may also benefit from the GHGIA. CGS will engage with research and policy communities to improve the GHGIA and to explore priority challenges and potential solutions in future reports.
Questions on the GHGIA can be directed to ghgi@umd.edu.