2. The CORINAIR System, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

For the purpose of monitoring the state of the environment and to reduce air emissions according to national target plans and international agreements Denmark is obliged to make annual estimates of air emissions from all sectors. The Danish inventory is made in the European-wide CORINAIR (COoRdination of Information on AIR emissions) inventory format and the emission figures are further submitted to international conventions.

2.1 CORINAIR and international conventions

Air emissions are estimated and summarised in sub-sectors and the results are further reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Changes (UNFCCC) and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollutants (UNECE CLRTAP), according to their classification procedures. General information on the UNFCCC and UNECE conventions is available on the websites http://www.unfccc.de and http://www.unece.org

For aviation the UNECE and UNFCCC reporting rules prescribe a grouping in four different sub-categories: Domestic and international LTO (Landing and Take Off) and cruise. A LTO cycle describes the operation of an aircraft in the vicinity of an airport during approach, taxi-in and out, take off and climb to a level of 3000 feet.

Flights are considered domestic, if they have origin and destination in the same country for which the inventory is made. Flights leaving the country with foreign destinations are regarded as international flights. Both emissions related to domestic and international air traffic are to be reported to the UNFCCC only. Emissions associated with LTO activities are requested by the UNECE convention, although an exception is made for CO₂. In this case the UNFCCC reporting instructions are followed.

	Domestic flights	International flights
LTO (<3000 ft)	UNECE and UNFCCC	UNECE and UNFCCC
Cruise (>3000 ft)	UNFCCC	UNFCCC

CORINAIR is the most extensive European air emission inventory programme for national sector-wise emission estimations. To ensure estimates as timely, consistent, transparent, accurate and comparable as possible, the inventory programme has developed calculation methodologies for most sub-sectors and software for storing and further data processing (CORINAIR, 1999).

Incorporated in the CORINAIR software is a feature to serve the specific UNFCCC and UNECE convention needs for emission reporting. The requirements for emission information to other international bodies, such as the Helsinki (HELCOM) and Oslo-Paris (OSPARCOM) conventions and the EU monitoring mechanism for CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, are also met in terms of the emission components comprised in CORINAIR.

2.2 CORINAIR inventories

The CORINAIR emission inventory system has been developed by the European Union. Initially it was part of the EU (DG XI) Corine (COoRdination d’INformation Environmentale) programme set up by the Council of Ministers in 1985 (Decision 85/338/EEC). The first CORINAIR inventory covered the three pollutants: SO₂, NO_x and VOC¹ (Volatile Organic Compounds) for the year 1985. The then EU-12 countries participated in this first pan European inventory. The second inventory (for the year 1990) was expanded to 29 countries and the emission components SO₂, NO_x, NMVOC (Non Methane Volatile Organic Compounds), CH₄, CO, CO₂, N₂O and NH₃.

From 1994 the EEA (European Environment Agency) has co-ordinated the CORINAIR inventory programme and national estimates have been requested every year. The 1998 inventory has been carried out by 35 countries: the EU-15, the Phare 13 (Former Eastern European countries receiving monetary aid from the EU), Croatia, Cyprus, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Norway and Switzerland. At present CORINAIR comprises 28 different emission species and the emissions are made up in 11 main sectors further divided in more detailed second and third levels. The European inventories can be seen on the EEA website (http://www.eea.eu.int/). Time series of the Danish 1975-1996 emissions are reported by Winther et al. (1999a) and 1997 figures are also included at the NERI website http://www.dmu.dk

Total emissions of all the emission components in table 2.2 are requested by the UNECE convention, while only inventories of the greenhouse gases; CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, HFC’s, PFC’s and SF₆ should be submitted to UNFCCC.

The European work with environmental data is organised by the EEA in several European Topic Centres (ETC’s). Each ETC is responsible for gathering information on an European level concerning specific environmental subjects or environmental compartments. For emissions to the atmosphere the ETC/AE (European Topic Centre on Air Emissions) is lead by the Umweltbundesamt (UBA) in Germany, with partners from the UK (AEA Technology), The Netherlands (TNO), Austria (UBA), France (Citepa), Italy (ENEA) and Denmark (Risø National Laboratory).

The EEA has also made a network of National Focal Points (NFP’s), one for each country. The NFP’s are responsible for the country’s overall organisation of environmental information. In Denmark the NFP is NERI (National Environmental Research Institute) in Silkeborg. The Danish NFP has organised the work in National Reference Centres (NRC’s), one for each environmental subject or area. The Department of Policy Analysis at NERI is appointed to cover the Danish emissions to the atmosphere. In general the Danish NRC’s cover the same environmental themes as the European ETC’s. This means that the Danish CORINAIR inventories are submitted both to the ETC/AE and to the Danish NFP. The Danish air emission inventories can be found on http://www.dmu.dk and http://www.nfp-dk.eionet.eu.int.

2.3 CORINAIR aircraft emission calculation methodologies

Three different aircraft emission calculation methodologies are defined in the CORINAIR guidelines: the very simple, the simple and the detailed methodology. The previous methodology versions explained in CORINAIR (1996) were quite similar to the proposed methodologies by IPCC (Houghton et al., 1997a,b,c). The previous detailed methodology – referred to as the current methodology - is still used in Denmark for making national estimates and will be explained in much detail in the next chapter.

All three CORINAIR methodologies have been recently revised by the UNECE transport expert panel and more updated and detailed fuel use and emission data has become available (CORINAIR, 1999). A major improvement of the detailed methodology is the inclusion of fuel use and emission numbers for cruise flying conditions. The figures are given for different distance classes and a variety of representative aircraft types. A main purpose of the present project is to make the new detailed version operational for inventory makers. This work will be documented in chapter 4.