March 15th is the deadline for submitting the greenhouse gas emissions balance to the European Commission for the years 1990 – x-2. The National Inventory Report 2022 is devoted to the evaluation of statistical indicators and emission trends. In 2020, Slovakia reached historically the lowest values of greenhouse gas emissions since the beginning of reporting (1990). Low level of emissions was mainly due to the Corona virus pandemic and the associated lower mobility (decrease in fuel consumption, especially diesel oil in road transport), decrease in industrial production and planned reconstruction of the blast furnace in U. S. Steele Košice, but also partial transformation of the Upper Nitra energy industry. While the reductions associated with the pandemic and planned outages in the industry are temporary, climate change measures implemented at national level reduce emissions permanently.
The favorable development of greenhouse gas emissions is complemented by a positive balance of sinks in the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector, where sinks increased by 2 mil. tons of CO2 equivalents (2019/2020) and reached almost the 1990 level. The increase was mainly due to the decline in logging.