ANALYSIS OF THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES IN TERMS OF THE GASES AND AIR POLLUTANTS EMITTED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE.

The further development and existence of civilisation is significantly dependent on ecological awareness and the related actions undertaken by individual countries. The rapid and unprecedented economic growth of the 19th and 20th centuries has resulted in a significant imbalance of the natural environment. One of the more important consequences of this growth is the emission of large amounts of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. This leads to soil, water, and air contamination, thereby negatively affecting the health and life of all living organisms inhabiting our planet. It is therefore reasonable to determine which countries contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants within the European Union, and to what extent. This analysis was carried out for six gases, including three greenhouse gases and two types of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5). Countries were grouped in terms of similarity of emissions. The purpose of the research presented in this paper was to objectively analyse the emission of the substances in question with respect to the particular European Union (EU) countries, and to determine how emissions changed over the analysis period. The inclusion of 9 substances and the long time horizon adopted in the comparative analysis also make it possible to assess the actions undertaken by the particular countries. At the same time, the division of the countries into similar groups paves the way for an exchange of experiences and joint actions aimed at the improvement of environmental quality. Analysis was performed using Kohonen’s neural networks. Additionally, relationships were determined between the emission values for the selected pollutants in particular countries in the analysis years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]