UN climate body releases manual on GHG inventories, BUR
A new guidance document for the peer review of GHG inventories for Parties has been created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, with the support of the Global Support Programme (GSP) for National Communications and Biennial Update Reports (GSP).
The document aims to serve as a manual for experts to assess the GHG inventory and inventory development process. It describes how to perform a review of national GHG inventory management systems and national GHG inventories for non-Annex I Parties, taking into consideration and ensuring consistency with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines for national GHG inventories, and the Consultative Group of Experts on National Communications from Parties not included in Annex I to the Convention (CGE) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) training materials, workbooks, templates on developing sustainable national GHG inventory systems.
Parties to the UNFCCC submit information on the implementation of the Convention, including national actions to mitigate and adapt to the climate change as well as inventory of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Developing countries submit this information through national communications every four years and biennial update reports every two years. The greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories form the core of part of these reports.
Developing a national GHG inventory requires robust institutional arrangements, quality inputs (data, emission factors), understanding of the appropriate calculation methods, and capacity to compile a complete report. Developing countries continue to face challenges at each step of the GHG inventory development process, including the process to establish and apply quality assurance and quality control.
The objective of the guide are to provide clear guidance for the peer-review of national GHG inventory reports and national GHG inventory management systems, to achieve higher quality reporting, through the use of Quality Assurance and Quality Control procedures in a non-intrusive or punitive manner; achieve enhanced capacity of national experts involved in the process of the preparation of national GHG inventories to develop high quality, transparent, national GHG inventory reports and maintain sustainable national GHG inventory management systems; and facilitate the enhanced process of Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) of national GHG inventory reports, both across countries (peer-review) and within countries (expert-review).
