GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN THE WASTE MANAGEMENT SECTOR

Abstract

The Member States of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are required to periodically publish their national inventories of anthropogenic emissions in National Inventory Reports. The data used in this paper was extracted from these reports and applied to generate a study of the development of greenhouse gas emissions in the waste management sector. The results show a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for developed contries/regions from 1990 to 2016 due to improved collection and treatment of landfill gas, a shift from landfilling to biological and thermal treatment, as well as a shift to separate waste collection and treatment. The developing countries and regions show another development of greenhouse gas emissions. On the one hand, their greenhouse gas emissions from the waste sector strongly increased due to higher generation of waste. And on the other hand, they increased due in most cases to unorganized and technically insufficent disposal of mixed waste on dumpsites along with better observation of disposal sites and therefore better registration of emissions. Nevertheless, the per capita emissions in developed countries/regions are with approx. 500 kg CO₂-eq./a much higher than for developing and emerging countries/regions, which just emit around 100 kg CO₂-eq./a.