30 January 2012: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report (FCCC/ARR/2011/FIN) of the individual review of the annual submission of Finland submitted in 2011. The report notes that in 2009, the main greenhouse gas (GHG) in Finland was carbon dioxide, accounting for 83.5% of total GHG emissions expressed in CO2 eq, followed by nitrous oxide (N02) (8.6%) and methane (CH4) (6.4%).

The Expert Review Team (ERT) concludes that Finland’s inventory submission has been prepared and reported in accordance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual inventories. The inventory submission is complete and Finland has submitted a complete set of common reporting format (CRF) tables for the years 1990–2009 and an national inventory report (NIR); these are complete in terms of geographical coverage, years and sectors, as well as complete in terms of categories and gases.

However, the ERT identifies several cross-cutting issues for improvement including: the further improvement of transparency in the energy sector and the industrial processes sector, by including in the NIR the information provided to the ERT during the review; and the further improvement of transparency in the land use land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector, as well as on activities under Article 3, paragraphs 3 and 4, of the Kyoto Protocol.

In the report, the ERT formulates some recommendations relating to transparency and methodological improvement, including: improving the estimates for the lime production category through the use of plant-specific data; improving the time-series consistency of the estimates of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) emissions from electrical equipment; providing separate estimates for above-ground and below-ground biomass in the LULUCF sector; and estimating carbon stock changes in the dead wood pool for afforestation and reforestation under Article 3, paragraph 3, of the Kyoto Protocol in future annual submissions, or providing verifiable information demonstrating that this pool is not a net source. [Publication: Individual Review of the Annual GHG Submission of Finland Submitted in 2011]