Use of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service policy products to evaluate the contribution of EU cities to their pollution

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In this paper we compute and analyse the ‘cities contribution to their own pollution’, based on the ‘Source Contribution to EU cities’ policy product from the ‘Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service’. The analysis focuses on 38 EU cities, analyzing how the ‘cities contribution’ changes from a temporal and spatial perspective. A comparison with state-of-the-art similar analysis is also provided. Results show that city contributions (for yearly aggregated values) largely change spatially (that is to say city by city) with values ranging from 5% to 54% for PM2.5 and from 24% to 81% for NO2. We also highlight how local contributions are affected by meteorology. From a temporal point of view, the variability is even higher between seasonal and/or daily city contributions. All these results stress the complexity of finding the right balance between local and national/international emission reduction policies and the challenge of applying measures at the right time, to increase their efficiency. • We analyse the ‘cities contribution to their own pollution’. • Data comes from the ‘Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service’. • The analysis focuses on 38 EU cities. • Results show large spatial and temporal variability of ‘cities contribution’. • Results show It is complex to find the right balance between local and higher level policies.