About PlainEmissions

Our mission is to make global greenhouse-gas emissions data transparent and comparable. PlainEmissions is a research platform — not a single-source dashboard and not an advocacy site. We harmonize four independent measurement systems (EU EDGAR, World Bank Climate Data, Climate TRACE, UNFCCC national inventories) so researchers, journalists, ESG analysts, and policymakers can see where the sources agree, where they diverge, and why.

The portal covers per-country, per-sector, per-year emissions for every country with a national greenhouse-gas inventory or a bottom-up EDGAR estimate. Time series reach back to 1970 where EDGAR coverage permits. The fact table normalizes everything to megatonnes of CO2-equivalent using IPCC AR6 GWP100 multipliers — and we retain the native unit value alongside, so methodological transparency is never sacrificed for a cleaner-looking number.

Our data

Every figure on PlainEmissions traces back to one of four upstream sources:

• EU EDGAR (Joint Research Centre): Bottom-up sector-level estimates for all countries since 1970. The gold standard for cross-country comparability. CC BY 4.0.
• World Bank Climate Knowledge Portal: Country-level macro climate and emissions indicators with broad historical coverage. CC BY 4.0.
• Climate TRACE: Independent satellite + machine-learning facility-level estimates — increasingly the only check on self-reported numbers. CC BY 4.0.
• UNFCCC National Inventories: Official self-reported country submissions using IPCC reporting guidelines. The legal-record source. Public.

Methodology

We download raw datasets from each upstream source, normalize country codes to ISO 3166-1 alpha-3, align sector taxonomies to a common IPCC-style hierarchy, and store everything in long format (country × year × sector × gas) with explicit provenance per row. No interpolation, no editorializing, no source selection. For full details, see our methodology page.

Why four sources

Single-source emissions dashboards hide methodological uncertainty. UNFCCC inventories are politically negotiated; EDGAR is model-driven; Climate TRACE is satellite-derived. They disagree — sometimes substantially — and that disagreement is informative. Every PlainEmissions country page surfaces the spread across sources rather than silently picking one. Research pages dig into the largest divergences and explain why.

Updates

EDGAR releases annually (typically Q3-Q4). World Bank refreshes monthly. Climate TRACE updates quarterly. UNFCCC updates on a rolling country-by-country basis. We refresh our database within four weeks of any major upstream release; methodology tracks current vintage.

Not affiliated

PlainEmissions is not affiliated with the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, Climate TRACE, or any government. We are an independent research platform presenting public-domain and open-licensed data in a more accessible format.

Who built this

PlainEmissions is published by ", an independent data-journalism publisher that compiles, verifies, and contextualizes public datasets across science, finance, health, environment, and government. We do not accept compensation from entities we cover and we do not engage in climate advocacy — our role is to make the underlying numbers easier to find and easier to verify.

How we publish

PlainEmissions is published by Kiznis Studio. We are a small data publisher, not a traditional newsroom. Country and sector totals, gas-level breakdowns, and time-series figures are loaded directly from the upstream source (EDGAR, World Bank, Climate TRACE, UNFCCC) and rendered from the database — numbers are never modified between source and page. Plain-language explainers, methodology notes, and reconciliation studies are researched and drafted with computational assistance and reviewed by Kiznis Studio before publication. Our methodology page documents the pipeline in full.

Disclaimer

PlainEmissions is for informational and research purposes. Greenhouse-gas data is inherently uncertain; figures should be interpreted alongside the methodological notes published by each upstream source. We do not provide policy advice, investment advice, ESG attestation, or regulatory-compliance services. Always verify important figures with the official upstream record.

Contact

For data corrections, source-attribution questions, or research-data licensing inquiries (institutional and enterprise ESG analysts), email hello@plainemissions.com or use our contact form.