Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting

As a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Germany has been obliged since 1994 to draw up, publish and regularly update national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions. With the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in February 2005, the international community is required to implement mandatory action goals and implementation tools to avoid dangerous global climatic change. The resultant obligations were far-reaching for the creation, reporting and verification of emission inventories. The National Inventory Report (NIR) includes detailed and complete information about the entire process of greenhouse gas inventories' creation. It aims to increase transparency, consistency and comparability of the inventories. It also supports the independent review process.

All states that are also member states of the Kyoto Protocol must submit annual inventories from 2010 to call upon the flexible mechanisms under Articles 6, 12 and 17 of the Kyoto Protocol. With the inventories for the years 1990 to 2008, Germany submitted its eighth National Inventory Report (NIR 2010). The report also refers to that period and describes the methods and data sources on which the calculations are based.

The report and the report tables in the Common Reporting Format (CRF) were created in accordance with the UNFCCC reporting directive on annual inventories (FCCC/SBSTA/2006/9)and, to the greatest extent possible in accordance with the IPCC Good Practice Guidance (IPCC GPG, 2000) and IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (IPCC GPG-LULUCF, 2003). For the first time the NIR contains an additional Part II this year, as well as other subchapters in previous parts to meet the advanced requirements of the Kyoto Protocol and its related decisions taken at the European level.