3 August 2012: The UNFCCC Secretariat has released the report of the centralized review of the 2011 annual submission of Ireland (FCCC/ARR/2011/IRL), which states that total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by 13.8% between 1990 and 2009.

The Expert Review Team (ERT) that conducted the centralized review concludes that Ireland’s inventory submission was prepared in compliance with the UNFCCC reporting guidelines and relevant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines. It also concludes that the inventory submission, the common reporting format (CRF) tables and the national inventory report (NIR) were generally complete.

The ERT identifies the following cross-cutting issues for improvement: strengthening of quality assurance/quality control procedures for specific sectors, in particular for land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF); improving the uncertainty assessment for LULUCF; and providing estimates for categories and gases for which no methodologies and emission factors exist in the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines and in the IPCC good practice guidance.

The ERT further formulates recommendations for improving information presented, including: providing more detailed information on procedures for categories in the energy and industrial processes sectors that include installations under the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS); providing further methodological information for estimation of emissions in the industrial processes sector; enhancing transparency in the agriculture chapter of the NIR; and harmonizing methods for estimating emissions and removals for the LULUCF sector reported under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. [Publication: Report of the Individual Review of the Annual Submission of Ireland Submitted in 2011]