Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often lack the necessary tools, guidance, and capacity for compiling an emission inventory (EI) for air pollutants. A reliable EI is an important prerequisite for the identification of key emissions sources, as an input to modelling atmospheric transport and impacts of air pollutants, and the identification of appropriate mitigation policies. The publicly-available Global Atmospheric Pollution Forum Emission Inventory (GAPF-EI) tool meets the need of LMICs for a user-friendly tool allowing in-country practitioners to compile their own EIs. The species covered are SO2, NOX, CO, NMVOC, CH4, NH3, PM10, PM 2.5, black carbon, organic carbon and CO2. Output from the tool can therefore support the development of integrated air quality and climate change mitigation strategies. This tool incorporates default emission factors and inventory methods conforming with internationally recognised approaches. The GAPF-EI tool enables emissions to be estimated for technologies or practices that are often of little or no relevance to developed countries, but may represent key sources in LMICs.
This paper describes the GAPF-EI tool and its application to Côte d’Ivoire where emissions from traditional biomass cookstoves, vegetation fires, traditional charcoal manufacture, road transport (including dust from unpaved roads) and open burning of municipal solid waste were found to be particularly important components of the inventory. The application of the GAPF-EI approach to Côte d’Ivoire has demonstrated its utility in addressing emission sources of particular relevance to LMICs in addition to providing a user-friendly, transparent and flexible EI preparation tool. In addition, outputs from the GAPF-EI tool can also support the development of mitigation scenarios for low emission development plans to address short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs), air pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particularly, the development of integrated air quality and climate change strategies.
The GAPF EI tool grew out of a manual initially prepared for, and sponsored by, the UNDP/UN DESA (principal authors: David von Hippel and Harry Vallack) entitled “Manual for Preparation of Emissions Inventories for use in Modelling of Transboundary Air Pollution” for use in Northeast Asia. Subsequent development of the GAPF-EI tool was co-sponsored by the BOC Foundation, the USEPA and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) as part of its Regional Air Pollution in Developing Countries (RAPIDC) and Global Atmospheric Pollution Forum (GAPF) programmes.
