Energy, Transport and Environment Statistics — 2023 Edition
About this book
Energy, Transport and Environment Statistics — 2023 Edition, published annually by Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the European Union), is the primary official data compendium covering the energy balance, transport activity, and environmental performance of European Union member states and candidate countries. Drawing on harmonised data submitted by national statistical offices under EU statistical regulations, the publication provides time-series data typically covering 2000–2022, allowing trend analysis across the period of the EU's major energy and climate policy development. The energy section covers gross available energy, energy transformation (electricity and heat generation), final energy consumption by sector (industry, transport, households, services, agriculture), and renewable energy share calculations aligned with the EU Renewable Energy Directive methodology.
The data reveals the EU's significant shift in its energy mix: coal consumption fell by approximately 50% between 2010 and 2022, natural gas consumption peaked and began declining, and renewable electricity generation (dominated by wind and solar) expanded to represent approximately 37% of EU electricity generation by 2022. Member state variation is a persistent theme. The publication documents the contrast between high renewable share countries (Denmark at >70%, Austria at >80% hydro-dominated electricity mix) and high fossil fuel dependent countries (Poland at >70% coal electricity generation).
This variation explains the political difficulty of setting uniform EU-wide decarbonisation targets and the need for differentiated national contributions. Transport statistics cover passenger kilometres by mode (road, rail, aviation, water), tonne-kilometres of freight by mode, vehicle fleet composition (passenger cars, trucks, buses) including electric vehicle stock by country, and new vehicle registrations with CO₂ ratings. The accelerating EV transition is visible in the data: battery electric vehicle registrations grew from 0.2% of new car sales in 2017 to over 12% by 2022 across the EU.
The environment section reports greenhouse gas emissions by sector (aligning with Eurostat's air emissions accounts methodology), municipal waste generation and treatment rates, water use and water stress indicators, and biodiversity pressure indicators. The publication is indispensable for researchers, policymakers, and consultants working on EU energy transition, transport decarbonisation, and circular economy monitoring.