Developing GHG Inventories

Article 5 of the Kyoto Protocol requires that by the year 2007 countries develop a "national system" that estimates GHG emissions by sources and GHG removals by sinks. Although the Protocol does not define a "national system," countries are already submitting their views on the methodology and characteristics of such systems.

It seems likely that key elements might include:

• Institutional arrangements for inventory preparation (e.g., who undertakes it, how it relates to central policy-makers and other stakeholders, level of effort, budgeting and staffing, regulatory framework, integration with national and entity level inventory systems, etc.)

• data collection procedures and inventory process (e.g., for activity data, for survey techniques and frequency, for emission factors, transparency of process and verifiability of data, etc.)

• review of evaluation procedures (e.g., quality assessment and control, verification or audit procedures conducted or sponsored by the national inventory program)

National GHG inventories must also use "methodologies accepted by the IPCC." Generally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodologies are flexible and open-ended, though in most recent submissions to the Secretariat and the subsidiary bodies, some Parties recommend that methodologies become binding.

IPCC current methodologies provide comparative methods for calculating emissions data by region or country for those Parties (like EITs) attempting to compile inventories on limited information resources. The latest published IPCC methodologies are the 1996 Revised IPCC Guidelines.

In 1997, the IPCC decided that updating the guidelines will occur roughly every five years - thus Parties will need to adapt and keep track of changing technical methodologies and reporting formats.

A key issue confronting the Conference of the Parties is to set up a compliance system whose efficiency will depend to a great extent on the accuracy and reliability of countries' inventories. Thus, to further support countries efforts in building their national systems and producing accurate inventories, IPCCC is currently completing a report on uncertainty and good practice in inventory management. All these activities aim to support countries in preparing their GHG inventories and complying with reporting requirements. They also aim to reduce uncertainty in inventory preparation, help improve accuracy, reliability and transparency so that country compliance can be assessed.

To further promote accuracy, the Protocol (Article 5) requests that Parties "formulate... where appropriate... programmes to improve the quality of local emission factors, activity data and/or models which reflect the socio-economic conditions of each Party for the preparation and periodic updating of national inventories."

In short, national GHG inventories are the main vehicle through which countries must demonstrate that their actual emissions, from the 2008-2012 period, do not exceed their assigned amount. Because inventories are the linchpin in an effective Kyoto Protocol, Parties are likely to insist on completely transparent estimation methodologies and strict international review procedures.