Air pollutant emissions

Under the terms of the 1979 United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (Geneva Convention), the 1999 Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-level Ozone (Gothenburg Protocol) and the 2012 Amendment to the Gothenburg Protocol, and Directive 2016/2284 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2016 on the reduction of national emissions of certain atmospheric pollutants, amending Directive 2003/35/EC and repealing Directive 2001/81/EC (NEC Directive), Member States are required to submit annual information on emissions of air pollutants and set future emission reduction commitments. In addition, Latvia has also ratified the Protocol to the Geneva Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Protocol on Heavy Metals, which provide for the reduction of emissions of the relevant substances from the specified reference year (1990). The data are prepared on the basis of the Geneva Convention guidelines on air pollution emissions from certain economic sectors – energy, transport, use of industrial processes and products, agriculture, waste management and others – including sources of diffuse pollution. In Latvia, the procedure for obtaining and reporting such data is laid down in Cabinet Regulation No 614 of 2 October 2018 on the reduction and recording of total air pollutant emissions.