12 February 2010: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the reports of the individual review of the annual submissions of the Governments of Italy, Japan and Estonia, submitted in 2009.
The report for Italy (FCCC/ARR/2009/ITA) indicates that the expert review team (ERT) found that Italy’s inventory continues generally to have been prepared and reported in line with the Revised 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines, the IPCC good practice guidance and the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). However, the ERT found that Italy could improve the transparency of its inventory submission, by providing information in the National Inventory Report (NIR) to explain and justify its use of emission factors (EFs) and other parameters from the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. The ERT also found statements in the NIR clarifying that the party had used data obtained from the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) to estimate emissions from a number of categories in the industrial processes sector and to improve EFs and verify activity data (AD) in the energy sector; however, the ERT concluded that the party has not provided sufficient information in its NIR, particularly for the energy sector.
The report for Japan (FCCC/ARR/2009/JPN) indicates that the ERT found that the 2009 inventory submission is generally in line with the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines, the IPCC good practice guidance and the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF. It is generally of a high quality, and the ERT welcomes the improvements made by Japan in response to previous reviews. However, the ERT notes the need to address other recommendations made in previous review reports, such as to provide better documentation of the drivers of emission trends and to provide estimates of actual emissions of HFCs, PFCs and SF6 for the years 1990–1994. The ERT also identified a need for further improvements in the following areas: inclusion of more detailed information on the country-specific EFs used in all sectors, particularly the EFs associated with carbon dioxide emissions from combustion; provision of the rationale for all recalculations; and better documentation of category-specific quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures in all sectors, including the QA procedures used in the agriculture and waste sectors.
The report for Estonia (FCCC/ARR/2009/EST) indicates that the inventory is generally in line with the IPCC Good Practice Guidance, the IPCC good practice guidance for LULUCF and the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines. However, the ERT notes that the completeness and transparency of the reporting could be improved. Estonia’s 2009 inventory submission covers most sectors and categories, but the ERT identified a need for further improvements in the following areas: identification of the land areas subject to afforestation, reforestation and deforestation; use of higher-tier methods to estimate emissions from key categories (such as CH4 emissions from manure management); improvement of inventory completeness for all sectors; and improvement of the transparency of the annual submission in general. [Report for Estonia] [Report for Italy] [Report for Japan]