State Greenhouse Gas Inventories

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EPA supports state efforts to develop greenhouse gas inventories by providing inventory guidance and technical assistance. Forty-two states and Puerto Rico have completed inventories as of April 2006. States use their inventories to understand their emissions sources, develop State Climate Change Action Plans, and implement policies and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The map below identifies which states have completed a greenhouse gas inventory. Brief inventory summaries and links to full text of the inventories at state-sponsored Web sites are available below for the recent or updated inventories. To view these summaries and links, click on a state shaded orange in the map below or select a state from the “State GHG Inventories” drop-down menu. Inventory summaries and links to full text of older inventories have been archived and can be accessed here.

LEGEND

Recent Inventory Information Available

1990 Inventory Information Available in Archive

No Inventory Information Available

State GHG Inventories:

The inventories present annual emissions of greenhouse gases by sector (e.g., energy, agriculture, waste), by source (e.g., transportation emissions, manure management) and by gas (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane). State totals are reported in million metric tons of carbon equivalent (MMTCE) or million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2E); both units provide a common metric across the various gases, and normalize their influence on warming as expressed by their global warming potential (PDF, 16 pp., 74 KB, About PDF).

The methods on which the inventories are based generally estimate greenhouse gas emissions as a function of (a) activity data (e.g., coal consumption, cement production, fertilizer consumption, etc.) and (b) activity- and gas-specific emission factors. EPA has been instrumental in developing methods for state GHG inventories that are consistent with those used for the United States national inventory, and with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines . EPA's online state inventory summaries reflect inventory estimates supplied by the states. In some cases, state emission estimates are significantly different from what would be calculated using EPA tools and guidance and these cases are noted within specific state summaries. EPA has also created an overview of state GHG emissions by sector, reflecting state estimates (PDF, 1 pp., 46 KB, About PDF).