EU reporting on Sources and Sinks

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EU reporting on Sources and Sinks
Ispra, 13 November 2008

• Dr. Erasmia Kitou
• DG ENV Unit C.1 Climate strategy, International
  Negotiation and Monitoring of EU Action

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(No Transcript)
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Role of the JRC

• Assists in the improvement of methodologies for
  the LULUCF and agriculture sectors
• Compares methodologies used among the Member
  States for estimating emissions and removals from
  LULUCF and agriculture
• Provides EU-wide emissions and removal estimates
  obtained using various models/methods with a
  focus on LULUCF
• Maintain database on LULUCF emissions factors
• Close interaction with the Member States and the
  research community.
• Results of these activities by the JRC are made
  available to Member States in the period
  May-December to assist Member States in the
  compilation of their national inventories for the
  subsequent year

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LULUCF emissions in the EC inventory

• Emissions reported to UNFCCC are based on
  bottom-up inventories
• Emissions and removals from LULUCF for the EC are
  the sum of Member States emissions and removals
  as reported in their CRF tables.
• Reporting based on
• traditional Land Use statistics and National
  Forest Inventory data
• modelling

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Problems in the LULUCF sector

• Problems
• Lack of data
• Harmonization issues
• Uncertainties, e.g., due to high variability of
  emission factors
• Collection methods differ design, spatial
  intensity, frequency of field survey, and of
  latest information available.

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Improvements made

• Forest inventories have developed a lot, and
  further developments are under way.
• The improvements include
• extended use of the new Good Practice Guidance
  for LULUCF (IPCC 2003)
• key category analysis including LULUCF sector
• more complete category coverage
• estimation of emissions from important pools like
  soils
• use of improved activity data
• use of improved emission factors
• developments in uncertainty estimation
• improved reporting on methodology.

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Reporting LULUCF activities under theKyoto
Protocol

• Report emissions and removals of CO2 and other
  GHG resulting from
• Article 3.3 activities (mandatory) Human induced
  conversion from forested
  unforested, since 1990
• Afforestation, reforestation and deforestation
• Article 3.4 activities (voluntary) No land
  conversion but land-management
• Forest mgmt.,Cropland mgmt.,Grazing land
  mgmt.,Revegation
• Information reported is supplementary to that
  reported under the Convention
• Parties to report annually during the commitment
  period
• But annual reporting does not imply need for
  annual measurements

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MS information

• During the Initial Report, Parties have provided
  some LULUCF-related information
• forest parameters,
• activities elected under Art. 3.4,
• accounting frequency)
• This information is under the responsibility of
  MS. The EC initial report only included tables
  presenting an overview on MS' decisions as
  reported in their reports
• Information on how the national system will
  identify land areas associated with activities
  under Article 3.4 is provided in the assigned
  amount reports of MS as the development of the
  methodological approach to identify land areas is
  part of their responsibilities
• As only Member States may elect 3.3 and 3.4
  activities and issue RMUs, the EC inventory under
  the KP will only include information on the sum
  of the 15 MS emissions and removals from the
  elected activities
• The EC will neither issue nor cancel units based
  on the reported emissions and removals from 3.3
  and 3.4 activities
• The EC will report the sum of MS' cumulative
  accounting quantities for these activities at the
  end of the commitment period

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Reporting obligations at EU level

• Decision 280/2004, Article 3.1(d)
• information with regard to the accounting of
  emissions and removals from land-use, land-use
  change and forestry, in accordance with Article
  3(3) and, where a Member State decides to make
  use of it, Article 3(4) of the Kyoto Protocol,
  and the relevant decisions thereunder, for the
  years between 1990 and the year before last (year
  X-2)
• Decision 2005/166, Article 3
• Member States shall, in accordance with Article
  3(3) of the Kyoto Protocol and the relevant
  decisions adopted thereunder, for the purpose of
  Article 3(1)(d) of Decision No 280/2004/EC report
  their anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by
  sources and removals by sinks from land-use
  change and forestry activities under Article 3(3)
  of the Kyoto Protocol for the years between 1990
  and the year before last.
• Member States that elect forest management,
  cropland management, grazing land management or
  revegetation under Article 3(4) of the Kyoto
  Protocol shall in addition report anthropogenic
  greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals
  by sinks for each elected activity for the years
  between 1990 and the year before last.
• Member States shall clearly distinguish this
  information from estimates of anthropogenic
  emissions from the sources listed in Annex A to
  the Kyoto Protocol.
• Member States shall provide the information in
  paragraph 1 in their reports submitted from 15
  January 2010 onwards.

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Difficult issues

• For all activities, ARD, FM, CM, GM and RV land
  identification and tracking land transitions over
  time
• Reporting of soils, and especially organic soils
• Reporting on forest fires for Mediterranean
  countries with regards to assessment of destroyed
  areas and the future of burned land

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Future considerations

• Timely reporting 15 January 2010
• KP 3.3 and 3.4 reporting mandatory in 2010 on the
  basis of 2008 data
• Avoid confusion with AFOLU and 2006 guidelines
• Going from Convention reporting to the KP 3.3 and
  3.4 reporting is a substantial step
• Important to find and share solutions on delicate
  issues
• Important to ensure harmonised LULUCF KP
  reporting
• better transparency/consistency at the EU level
• Get better knowledge of the state of the art in
  the MS, be able to anticipate possible
  difficulties for EC level KP reporting and deal
  with them on time

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More info on EU climate policy
http//europa.eu.int/comm/environment/climat/home_
en.htm
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Uncertainties

• Uncertainties linked to forest area definitions
• Uncertainties linked to activity data
• Uncertainties linked to national forest
  inventories (NFI)
• Uncertainties linked to calculation of stocks
  increment
• Uncertainties linked to volume stocks statistics,
  or to harvest/drain statistics
• Uncertainties linked to expansion and conversion
  factors, or biomass functions

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NON-CO2 emissions

• Most non-CO2 emissions are
• CH4 and NO2 deriving from wildfires - especially
  in the Mediterranean countries
• N2O from disturbance associated with land-use
  conversion to cropland.
• In most cases these emissions appear negligible
  in comparison to emissions/removals of CO2.

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Preparation process

• Key category analysis ? determine minimumTier to
  use
• Determine level of accuracy based on existing
  data
• Precision
• 1 - 3 approaches
• Approach 1 Use of existing data- Forestry and
  agriculture stats.
• Approach 2 Approach 1 land use change info
• Approach 3 Explicit spatial information on land
  use and land use change (geological reference
  points, sampling, etc.)
• 2 Emission/Absorption factors 3 levels of
  accuracy
• Tier 1 (default factors)
• Tier 2 (national factors)
• Tier 3 (models and inventories tailored
  specifically to UNFCCC needs)

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Share of the main land use categories by area of
the EU-25
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Reporting Requirements CRF for LULUCF

• Carbon stock changes in broad pools are
  estimated (including living biomass (above and
  below ground), dead wood and litter and soil
  organic matter (organic carbon in mineral and
  organic soils))
• Table 5 Sectoral Report for LULUCF
• Table 5AForest land Land converted to forest
  land
• Table 5B Cropland Land converted to cropland
• Table 5C Grassland Land converted to grassland
• Table 5D Wetlands Land converted to wetlands
• Table 5E Settlements Land converted to
  settlements
• Table 5F Other land Land converted to other
  land
• Table 5(I) Direct N2O emissions from N
  fertilization
• Table 5(II) N2O emissions from drainage of soils
• Table 5(III)N2O emissions from disturbance
  associated with land use conversion to cropland
• Table 5(IV) C emissions from agricultural lime
  application
• Table 5(V) Biomass burning

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Past/On-going work

• Need to check both the forest inventory data and
  the preparation of the GHG inventory.
• Contribution of forests and forestry to mitigate
  greenhouse effects (COST E21)
• Objective to exchange experience and knowledge
  and to improve the quality of GHG inventory
  compilation for forests in Europe. 2004.
• Harmonisation of national forest inventories in
  Europe Techniques for common reporting (COST
  E43)
• Objective improve and harmonise the existing
  national forest resource inventories in Europe
  and at promoting the use of scientifically sound
  and validated methods in forest inventory
  designs, data collection and data analysis (e.g.,
  harmonised estimation procedures for carbon pools
  and carbon pool changes.
• Workshops Improving the Quality of Community
  GHG Inventories and Projections for the LULUCF
  Sector(Ispra, 2005)