22 December 2010: The UNFCCC Secretariat has published the report (FCCC/ARR/2010/AUS) of the review of the annual inventory submission of Australia.

The report indicates that the Expert Review Team (ERT) finds the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory of Australia to be generally in line with the Revised 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines, the IPCC Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National GHG Inventories, and the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). The ERT notes that, in some cases where country-specific methods and emission factors are used, transparency could be improved by providing clearer or more detailed explanation in the national inventory report.

The ERT finds that Australia’s inventory is largely complete and covers all sources and sink categories for the period 1990 to 2008, and is complete in terms of years and geographical coverage. However, it notes that a number of categories that Australia believes to be minor remain, and are reported as not estimated either because of a lack of data or because the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines do not provide a methodology. Where data becomes available and where there is methodological guidance provided in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National GHG Inventories, the ERT encourages Australia to provide estimates of these emissions in its future annual submissions. [Australia’s Inventory Report]