7 October 2011: The UNFCCC Secretariat has published the report of the individual review of the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory submission of the US submitted in 2010 (FCCC/ARR/2010/USA). The report covers the centralized review of the 2010 inventory submission of the US, coordinated by the UNFCCC Secretariat, in accordance with decision 19/CP.8 (Guidelines for the technical review of Annex I GHG inventories).

The 2010 inventory contains a complete set of common reporting format tables for the period 1990–2008 and a national inventory report. The inventory submission was made in accordance with the Guidelines for the preparation of Annex I national communications, Part I: UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual inventories. Where necessary, the expert review team (ERT) also used previous years’ inventories submissions during the review.

The ERT concluded that the US inventory submission has been prepared, and the information in it generally reported, in accordance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines, and that the inventory is complete in terms of years and geographical coverage, and generally covers all source and sink categories for 1990–2008. However, the ERT also noted some shortcomings with the submission and some areas in which it did not comply with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines. In the course of the review, the ERT formulated some recommendations relating to the completeness of the inventory submission and the transparency of the information presented in it. The key recommendations are that the US: improve the completeness of the inventory; use higher-tier methods to estimate emissions for key categories; report emissions from the energy sector at a more disaggregated level; improve the transparency of the emission estimates for the “US territories;” and improve the reporting of trends and inter-annual variations. [Publication: Report of Individual Review of the Inventory Submission of the United States of America Submitted in 2010]