Aligning historical data for aviation and maritime transport to the scope of EU climate policies: JRC-IDEES-2024 methodological update

The climate targets of the European Union (EU) are defined in relation to historical benchmarks: for instance, the European Climate Law requires net domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be reduced by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990. However, for aviation and maritime transport, primary statistics on emissions are not available at the geographical detail needed to suitably track the contribution of international voyages to domestic emissions. To this end, a suitable calibration methodology was first published in 2024 as part of the Joint Research Centre’s Integrated Database of the European Energy System (JRC-IDEES), harmonizing available statistics to produce an internally consistent decomposition of activity, energy use, and emissions for aviation and maritime transport in the EU and European Economic Area (EEA). The present report documents the updated JRC-IDEES-2024 aviation and maritime methodology, which extends coverage with annual data for 1990-2024 and introduces new policy-relevant indicators such as emissions under the scope of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The resulting open-access dataset matches Eurostat energy balances and distinguishes intra-/extra-EU and/or intra-/extra-EEA departures for each EU Member State, each EEA country, and the United Kingdom. As such, it is consistent with the scope of EU climate policies and can inform further research and decision-making.