NSOs, especially in UNFCCC Annex I Parties to UNFCCC, should be proactive in reaching out to national agencies responsible for greenhouse gas inventories and, ideally, they should be considered official institutions in the national systems of greenhouse gas inventories
NSOs especially Annex I Parties to UNFCCC should be proactive in reaching out to national agencies responsible for greenhouse gas inventories and, ideally, they should be considered official institutions in the national systems of greenhouse gas inventories in all countries. The Kyoto Protocol provides the legal basis for the design of GHG inventory processes, including the establishment of national systems incorporating all “institutional, legal and procedural arrangements necessary to” prepare inventories. Though NSOs are not considered part of the national system in many countries, the Kyoto Protocol clearly provides the flexibility for this. Therefore, NSOs may wish to develop their role and involvement in GHG inventory compilation along the following lines:
- Facilitate collaboration between the statistical system and national inventory systems
- Create a national working group between the NSO, the GHG inventories agencies and other relevant organizations
- Clarify the NSO’s role in providing statistics and assist, as needed, in GHG inventory calculations
- Support the efforts at strengthening the quality of GHG inventories in line with the IPCC’s guidelines on quality control and quality assurance
Good Practices
| Name of the case | Country | Brief description | Results | Difficulties | Further information |
| Increased involvement of the NSO in the inventory system | Albania | To improve the quality and availability of data for inventories, Albania decided to involve the NSO more closely | - Albania’s experience supports the need to develop the capacity for and involvement of official statistics in emission inventory compilation | - Before NSO's involvement data availability and quality presented a barrier to improving the accuracy of the national inventory | |
| NSO making quality checks on GHG data | Australia | The NSO has a prominent role in the coordination of GHG inventories as part of national statistics and reviewing data quality | - Australia has good experience from including inventories into the system of official statistics | - The knowledge on inventories and the related methodologies is quite specialized, but quality is also largely defined by activity data on which NSO has the expertise | |
| NSO a partner in data provision | Canada | Statistics Canada is one of the main providers of underlying activity data, while Environment Canada is the responsible authority for inventories. | - As a main provider of activity data, the NSO is heavily involved in the production of inventories and has responsibilities in its quality improvements. | - Confidentiality of statistical data creates barriers for data provision | |
| Improving official statistics in EU for the purposes of emission inventories and climate analysis | Eurostat | Describes the inventory system for the EU | - EU GHG inventories (mostly) under responsibility of DG CLIMA, EEA and national Environmental agencies - Eurostat contributes with data (e.g. reference approach) - Eurostat publishes data on Air Emissions accounts (which address other policy questions and complement inventories) | - Environmental accounts link Environmental pressures with economic activity and to responses - Need to intensify links between two networks: statistical system and environmental agencies - Better align classifications of UNFCCC and ISIC (NACE) - Important to understand what are the policy questions and data needs | PPT |
| NSO as the national entity | Finland | Statistics Finland is the national entity with the responsibility for production, administration, quality management and communication of the inventory. | - Advantages of an NSO coordinating the work include the ability to achieve close collaboration with energy and other source statistics, well-developed quality assurance methods and the ability to make detailed comparisons with confidential source data. Another major advantage is that no additional data collection is needed for the emission inventory. | - The Government in Finland noted problems associated with emissions data being spread between several sources and, therefore, assigned the responsibility for coordinating the inventory compilation to Statistics Finland in 2003. - A disadvantage is that the NSO cannot publicly release company-specific information unlike other government agencies are sometimes able to. | |
| Priority areas in establishing and enhancing collaboration between GHG inventories and statistics | Finland | Current status and challenges of GHG inventories; in Finland the NSO is responsible for this data | GHG reporting in 5 sectors: (1) Energy, (2) Industrial Processes and product use (IPPU), (3) Agriculture, (4) Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) and (5) Waste | Challenges in confidentiality | PPT |
| NSO involved in emission register | The Netherlands | In total, about 70 emission experts from 10 institutes are involved in the process of collecting, processing and reporting of the emission data in the Netherlands. | - The data are stored in a central database from which all (inter)national reporting is done. National emissions are spatially allocated using a geographic information system. More recently, the integrated Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) has been expanded to include the GHG inventory system. | - The work process needs to be well coordinated and a formal agreement needs to be signed by all participating organisations. | |
| NSO in close triangular cooperation around inventories | Norway | The Norwegian national GHG inventory system is based on a triangular cooperation between the Norwegian Environment Agency, Statistics Norway and the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute. | - Statistics Norway is responsible for statistics on emissions to air. The main emission model has also been developed by Statistics Norway. | - Clear agreement on the roles of different organizations is a necessity. | |
| NSO provides data and calculations for inventories as a commissioned service | Sweden | Statistics Sweden is part of a consortium of consultants that contribute to the inventory. It produces a large share of the material submitted to the UNFCCC as a commissioned service to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. | - The work is regulated by a framework contract that runs for nine years, and organised as a project run by a project management team with one person from each organization | - This type of organization differs notably from most countries. | |
| NSO coordinates the work of the national entity for inventories | The United Kingdom | The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is the entity with responsibility for the overall management and strategic development of the GHG inventory. DECC also produces official statistics on energy and climate change | - All of DECC’s statistics are classified as official statistics in the United Kingdom, including inventories. - The key benefits of the UK system include assured independence and impartiality of the emissions reporting, quality assurance of the publication procedures, more effective public communication of the data and direct integration with the strategy and target setting for the inventories. | - Good governance across the government agencies is crucial for the inventory and priorities for inventory improvement work need to be commonly agreed. |