Scotland’s Carbon Footprint 1998-2022
Estimates of Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions on a consumption basis for the period 1998 to 2022.
Figure 9 shows the differences between the 2021 and 2022 releases of the carbon footprint. Revisions to previously published estimates in this release mainly relate to the latter part of the time-series with a general increase in estimated emissions from the year 2000. The reasons for these revisions relate purely to an enhancement made to the underlying modelling. The increased sectoral disaggregation of the latest model allows results to be calculated for a larger number of sectors and products since the previous release.
Figure 9: Scotland’s Carbon Footprint. Comparison of 1998-2021 and 1998-2022 series. Values in MtCO2e
Revisions between the 1990-2012 and 1990-2022 publications
Since the carbon footprint was first published, successive releases have used different versions of the UK MRIO model. The 2012 release used a 2-region model which only distinguished the UK and the Rest of the World as trade regions. The 2013, 2015 and 2016 releases used a four region model, distinguishing imports from Europe, China and the Rest of World, using trade data from the Eora global MRIO. The 2017, 2018 and 2019 model adopted the same four regions but used trade data from the EXIOBASE MRIO.
Comparison of Scotland’s carbon footprint and its territorial emissions
In addition to Scotland’s carbon footprint, Scotland’s carbon emissions are measured on a territorial basis. The different bases should be viewed as complementary ways of accounting for carbon emissions.