Global Sulfur Dioxide Emissions and the Driving Forces

The presence of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) in the air is a global concern because of its severe environmental and public health impacts. Recent evidence from satellite observations shows rapid changes in the spatial distribution of global SO₂ emissions, but such features are generally missing in global emission inventories that use a bottom-up method due to the lack of up-to-date information, especially in developing countries. Here, we rely on the latest data available on emission activities, control measures, and emission factors to estimate global SO₂ emissions for the period 1960-2014 on a 0.1° × 0.1° spatial resolution. We design two counterfactual scenarios to isolate the contributions of emission activity growth and control measure deployment on historical SO₂ emission changes. We find that activity growth has been the major factor driving global SO₂ emission changes overall, but control measure deployment is playing an increasingly important role. With effective control measures deployed in developed countries, the predominant emission contributor has shifted from developed countries in the early 1960s (61%) to developing countries at present (83%). Developing countries show divergency in mitigation strategies and thus in SO₂ emission trends. Stringent controls in China are driving the recent decline in global emissions. A further reduction in SO₂ emissions would come from a large number of developing nations that currently lack effective SO₂ emission controls.