27 September 2012
UNFCCC Publishes EU’s GHG Inventory Review Report
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The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report of the centralized review of the 2011 annual submission of the European Union (EU) (FCCC/ARR/2011/EU).

The ERT that conducted the centralized review concludes that the EU's inventory submission was prepared in compliance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines and identifies cross-cutting issues for improvement.

26 September 2012: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report of the centralized review of the 2011 annual submission of the EU (FCCC/ARR/2011/EU) that states that total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreased by 13% between 1990 and 2009.

The Expert Review Team (ERT) that conducted the centralized review concludes that the EU’s inventory submission was prepared in compliance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines, and that the inventory submission, the common reporting format (CRF) tables and the national inventory report (NIR) were complete. The ERT commends the EU’s efforts to improve completeness, consistency and transparency and on progress achieved during the preparation of its 2011 annual submission.

The ERT identifies the following cross-cutting issues for improvement, inter alia: continuing collaboration with Parties to increase the accuracy of the inventory and consistency of reporting, in particular regarding the consistent usage of notation keys; improving specific key category analysis and improving the transparency by improving the description of uncertainty estimates, key category analysis and quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures.

The ERT further recommends: explaining time trends not only by changes in data from member States, but to also consider the overall changes in fuel mixes; making efforts to achieve a consistent definition of climate regions in the agriculture sector; and encouraging member States to improve the completeness and accuracy of reporting for the land use, land use-change and forestry (LULUCF) sector and activities.[Publication: Report of the Individual Review of the Annual Submission of the European Union Submitted in 2011]