Reporting on National Circumstances and Greenhouse Gas Inventory Information

1
Reporting on National Circumstances and
Greenhouse Gas Inventory Information

• Introductory presentation by the UNFCCC
  secretariat
• Workshop on the preparation of fourth national
  communications from Annex I Parties
• Dublin, 30 September 1 October 2004

2
Overview

• Introduction
• UNFCCC reporting guidelines, main provisions
  relevant to reporting on national circumstances
  and greenhouse gas emission inventory measures
• CS report of NC3s, some general issues and
  problems identified
• Some points for discussion

3
Introduction

• National circumstances purpose of reporting
• Article 4.1 stipulates commitments of all
  Parties, taking into account national
  circumstances
• Article 4.2 (b) the aim of the Convention taking
  into account different circumstances, such as
  economic structure, resource base, need for
  sustainable growth
• Article 7.2(b) and (c) the role of the COP to
  promote exchange of information on PaMs taking
  into account different circumstances and to
  facilitate PaMs co-ordination
• Present basic political, economic, demographic,
  climatic and natural resource information
  relevant to GHG emissions/sinks
• Facilitate the understanding of the Parties
  policy choices to put the subsequent information
  in the NC in context
• Reporting on emission inventory Article 12.1(a)
  for all Parties

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UNFCCC reporting guidelinesnational circumstances

• Clear focus on how the national circumstances
  affect the GHG emission profile
• Information that best describes the national
  circumstances and historic trends, including
  disaggregated indicators
• To improve comparability two sets of information
  are required
• generic information government structure,
  population, geographic, climate and economic
  profiles
• sector specific information together with
  examples of the key drivers energy
  transportation, industry, waste, building stock
  and urban structure, agriculture, forest and
  others.

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Findings and Problems Encounterednational
circumstances

• Findings
• Improved reporting compared to the previous NCs
• Reporting on national circumstances was a basis
  for reporting on other issues, such as PaMs,
  emission inventory and projections
• Problems encountered
• Extensive reporting did not necessarily
  contribute to better understanding of the climate
  change context
• Wide diversity in the approaches used by Parties
  to present key parameters, such as GDP and energy
  supply and demand made the comparison across the
  countries difficult
• Many IEA/OECD data have been used for the
  Compilation and synthesis report and the IDR
  reports for consistency
• Time series for economic and energy data often
  did not match the period for reporting on
  emission inventory (from 1990 to the last but one
  year to the year of submission of the national
  communication).

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Starting Points for the Discussion national
circumstances

• How to ensure concise, yet complete and
  transparent reporting on the national
  circumstances how to enhance reporting on the
  effects of the main drivers relevant to GHG
  emission trends (obtained, e.g.through structural
  analysis)?
• How to report on key parameters, such as GDP and
  energy supply and demand in a comparable way is
  using the IEA/OECD data and categorization an
  option?
• How to ensure that the time series for economic
  and energy data and any other critical variable
  matches the period for reporting on emission
  inventory (from 1990 to the last but one year to
  the year of submission of the national
  communication)?

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UNFCCC Reporting Guidelines GHG inventory

• Summary information on GHG inventory prepared
  following guidelines for inventory
• Period from 1990 to the last but one year prior
  to the NC submission
• GHG inventory information in the NC3 should be
  consistent with the submission of the annual
  inventory information in the year when the NC is
  submitted and any differences should be clearly
  explained
• A complete inventory data set is not required
• At a minimum, Parties shall report the summary,
  including in CO2 eq. and emission trend tables
  given in the CRF (in annex)

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Findings and Problems EncounteredGHG inventory

• Findings
• Minor reporting problems and inconsistencies
  between the inventory data in the NC and annual
  inventory submission
• Problems encountered
• Some inconsistencies in the emission trends
  (between the NC2 and NC3, and the NC3 trend
  itself)
• In some cases, little information on the key
  drivers for emission trends this information is
  important for better understanding of PaMs and
  projections
• Limited information on quantitative analysis on
  how changes in key drivers are affecting emission
  trends(feedback from IDRs available, e.g. Germany
  and Finland)
• Limited explanation on the changes in the
  inventory data reported in the previous NC that
  affect emission trends

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Findings from the IDR of Germany (1)GHG inventory

• Key drivers for CO2 emissions reduction
• improvement in energy use efficiency (largely
  obtained in the new Länder in 19901995) as the
  main contributor
• changes in energy supply mix 1) fuel switching
  from coal to natural gas 2) an increased use of
  non-carbon energy (RES and nuclear energy)
• the counteracting effects of population and GDP
  growth
• Figure. Impact of key drivers on CO2 emissions
  in 19902002

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Findings from the IDR of Germany (2)GHG inventory

• Method used decomposition analysis (ASIF
  analysis)
• Allows to assess in quantitative terms the
  effects from key drivers, such as population,
  income, energy efficiency and energy supply mix
• Literature
• Hans-Joachim Ziesing CO2 emissions in 2002
  only a slight reduction. April 2003. Economic
  Bulletin of the German Institute for Economic
  Research 40(4)4 121-130. Berlin.
• J. Schleich, W. Eichhammer, U. Boede,
  F. Gagelmann, E. Jochem, B. Schlomann,
  H.-J. Ziesing. 2001. Greenhouse gas reductions in
  Germany lucky strike or hard work?. Climate
  Policy 1, 363380
• Jari Kaivo-oja, Jyrki Luukkanen The European
  Union balancing between CO2 reduction commitments
  and growth policy decomposition analyses, Energy
  Policy 32 (2004) 1511-1530, Elsevier
• IEA/OECD Oil crises and climate changes 30 years
  of energy use in IEA countries, 2004 Paris

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Starting Points for the Discussion GHG inventory

• What makes the reporting on GHG trends in a
  national communication different from and
  complementary to reporting on the GHG trends in
  annual NIRs and CRF files?
• How to ensure concise, yet complete reporting on
  the key drivers for the emission trends?
• How to improve reporting on the main drivers that
  affect GHG trends?