15 January 2013: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report of the centralized review of the 2012 annual submission of Austria (FCCC/ARR/2012/AUT). The review report states that total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by 13.4% between 1990 and 2010.

The Expert Review Team (ERT) conducting the centralized review concluded that Austria’s inventory submission was prepared in compliance with the UNFCCC and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relevant reporting guidelines. It also concluded that the inventory submission, the common reporting format (CRF) tables and the national inventory report (NIR) were complete.

The ERT identified issues for improvement, including: inclusion of uncertainty estimates for entire Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector in its next annual submission; implementation of additional Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) procedures to ensure that the actual data is used for the emission estimates; and improvement of the transparency of reporting with regard to the energy, industrial processes, agriculture, LULUCF, and waste sectors. It further recommends, inter alia: performing more detailed verification of oil and natural gas estimates provided by industry; and further methodological work to demonstrate directly human-induced afforestation and reforestation. [Publication: Report of the individual review of the annual submission of Austria submitted in 2012]