10 July 2012: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report of the centralized review of the 2011 annual submission of Japan (FCCC/ARR/2011/JPN) that states that total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreased by 3.7% between 1990 and 2009.

The Expert Review Team (ERT) that conducted the centralized review commends Japan for the efforts made to submit its annual submission under the circumstances of the earthquake and tsunami suffered in March 2011. The ERT concludes that Japan’s inventory submission was prepared in compliance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines. It also concludes that the inventory submission, the common reporting format (CRF) tables for 1990-2009 and the national inventory report are complete in terms of geographical coverage, years, gases and sectors. However, certain information is incomplete in terms of categories, such as in the industrial processes and in the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sectors.

The ERT identifies the following cross-cutting issues for improvement: provision of information as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) good practice guidance on the justification, selection of new data and methods; and increased transparency of country-specific methods. The ERT suggests the provision of an improvement plan, including the time frame for its implementation. The ERT further formulates sector-specific recommendations for improving completeness and transparency of the information, including: amending the allocation of carbon dioxide emissions from non-combustion processes in the energy and industrial processes sectors; improving the completeness of reporting, especially related to carbon stock changes for mandatory categories in the LULUCF sector; and improving the completeness of reporting in the industrial processes sector. [Publication: Report of the Individual Review of the Annual Submission of Japan Submitted in 2011]