11 September 2012: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report of the centralized review of the 2011 annual submission of Kazakhstan (FCCC/ARR/2011/KAZ) that states that total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions decreased by 27% between 1990 and 2009.

The Expert Review Team (ERT) that conducted the centralized review concludes that Kazakhstan’s inventory submission was prepared in compliance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines. It also notes that Kazakhstan submitted a complete set of Common Reporting Format (CRF) tables for the period 1990-2009. However, it indicates that estimates for a number of sources and sink categories are not reported in the CRF tables. The ERT notes that Kazakhstan’s inventory is generally not in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relevant guidance and recommends that Kazakhstan improve the completeness of its inventory by: achieving full coverage of the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector; and preparing and reporting estimates for all missing categories for which the relevant IPCCC relevant guidance provide estimation methodologies. The ERT also underscores that Kazakhstan’s institutional arrangements continue to not fully perform their required functions, reiterating the recommendation of the previous review report for strengthening cooperation and information exchange between all institutions involved in inventory preparation.

The ERT identifies the following cross-cutting issues for improvement: improvement of the structure of the NIR in accordance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines; inclusion of the LULUCF sector in the key categories assessment; and improvement of the completeness of the inventory by reporting estimates for missing categories and revising the use of notation keys. The ERT further formulates recommendations for improving the inventory transparency. [Publication: Report of the Individual Review of the Annual Submission of Kazakhstan Submitted in 2011]