19 March 2010: The UNFCCC Secretariat has published reports submitted in 2009 of the individual reviews of the annual submission of Liechtenstein (FCCC/ARR/2009/LIE), France (FCCC/ARR/2009/FRA), and the US (FCCC/ARR/2009).
The Expert Review Team (ERT) concludes that Liechtenstein’s inventory is generally in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Revised 1996 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, IPCC good practice guidance and the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), and is generally reported in accordance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines. However the ERT identifies a need for further improvements in various areas, including: using country-specific emission factors (EFs) and activity data (AD); reporting of emissions from stationary combustion disaggregated by categories in manufacturing industries and construction; improving the transparency of the information provided in the national inventory report (NIR) on these emissions; correcting inconsistencies between the common reporting format (CRF) tables and national statistics regarding livestock population; and correcting of distribution of manure from livestock among animal waste management systems (AWMS) in line with changes in agricultural practices over time.
For France, the ERT finds the inventory is in line with the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines, the IPCC good practice guidance and the IPCC good practice guidance for LULUCF. The 2009 inventory submission is generally of high quality, and covers all sectors and almost all categories. The ERT indicates that only a reduced number of categories are still reported as not estimated (NE), which will be addressed in the next annual submission. France has provided a complete NIR and an almost complete set of CRF tables. However, the ERT recommends that France consider structuring its next NIR by following its annotated outline and the guidance contained therein. The ERT recommends carrying out the following improvements: implementing external reviews of the inventory as part of the quality assurance procedures; implementing a tier 2 key category analysis; improving the completeness of the inventory; and improving the transparency on reporting of the choice of EFs.
Regarding the US, the ERT finds the inventory to be generally in line with the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines, the IPCC good practice guidance and the IPCC good practice guidance for LULUCF. Additionally, the US has begun to incorporate new methodologies and parameters from the 2006 IPCC Guidelines in several sectors, in particular for categories in the industrial processes sector. The methodologies, country-specific methods and models used by the US to calculate its estimates have, in general, been presented in the NIR in a transparent way. The ERT notes that the US had used higher-tier methods for many key categories and that many recommendations made in previous review reports had been incorporated into the estimation methodologies and implemented in the NIR. However, a number of key methodological improvements have not yet been addressed. In addition, the US has still not implemented a standardized system for updating its carbon dioxide emission EFs for fuels, in particular in relation to the rather old EFs used for coal. [Liechtenstein Inventory] [France Inventory] [US Inventory]