Reporting of the LULUCF sector under the Convention

Background

Article 4 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) identifies commitments of all Parties, taking into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances. In particular, Article 4, paragraph 1(d) identifies commitment to promote sustainable management, and promote and cooperate in the conservation and enhancement, as appropriate, of sinks and reservoirs of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, including biomass, forests and oceans as well as other terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems. Article 4, paragraph 1(a) identifies further commitment to develop, periodically update, publish and make available to the Conference of the Parties, in accordance with Article 12, national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, using comparable methodologies to be agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties. This commitment applies also to inventories of GHG emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).

Reporting of the LULUCF sector

The UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual inventories for Parties included in Annex I to the Convention (Decision 24/CP.19) provide, among others, guidance on the estimation and reporting of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol caused by activities relating to LULUCF. The guidance stipulates that reporting under the UNFCC covers all anthropogenic emissions and removals from the lands included in the LULUCF sector (land based approach). In principle, this approach applies a wall-to-wall comprehensive inventory of anthropogenic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases over the land units subject to activities relating to land use, land use change and forestry.

Depending on the reporting year, the preparation of GHG inventories that are transparent, consistent, complete, comparable and accurate should be consistent with methodologies from the following IPCC guidance and guidelines documents:

Annex-I Parties

Decision 24/CP.19 Revision of the UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual inventories for Parties included in Annex I to the Convention stipulates that Parties included in Annex I to the Convention should apply the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

The same decision encourages Annex I Parties to use the "2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands" in preparing their annual inventories under the Convention due in the year 2015 and beyond.

Non-annex-I Parties

Non-Annex I Parties submit data on LULUCF activities as part of their national communications or biennial update reports. The NCs shall be prepared in accordance with the guidelines contained in decision 17/CP.8, in which Parties agreed that Non-Annex I Parties should use the Revised 1996 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. They are also encouraged to apply the IPCC Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

The updates of the sections on the national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all GHGs not controlled by the Montreal Protocol in biennial update reports should contain updated data on activity levels based on the best information available using the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, the IPCC Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, and the IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry .

For further information on UNFCCC reporting and review processes please also consult the transparency pages: Introduction to Transparency

COP 11 (December 2005)

Decision 13/CP.9 invited Parties to submit their views on the tables of the common reporting format (CRF) for LULUCF and experiences with their use (FCCC/SBSTA/2005/MISC.7 and Add.1). Following these submissions, the secretariat synthesized the views by Parties (FCCC/SBSTA/2005/7) for the consideration of the SBSTA at its twenty-third session.

SBSTA 23 made several modifications to the tables of the CRF for LULUCF and recommended a draft decision on this matter (see FCCC/SBSTA/2005/L.19/Add.1) for adoption by COP 11. These changes to the tables of the CRF for LULUCF in 14/CP.11 will apply for inventory submissions by Annex I Parties due in April 2007 and later.

Further information on the reporting requirements for national GHG inventories of Annex I Parties and on the review process under the Convention is available under "GHG Inventories (Annex I)".

COP 9 (December 2003)

COP 9 (Milan, December 2003) adopted two important decisions on LULUCF. The first one, decision 13/CP.9, welcomed the report of the IPCC entitled Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF (GPG LULUCF) and decided that Parties should use this report for preparing and reporting annual greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories for the LULUCF sector under the Convention due in 2005 and beyond. At the time, this decision excluded guidance relating to the preparation and reporting of GHG inventories for the LULUCF sector under the context of the Kyoto Protocol, a matter subsequently taken up at a later session (see below). The GPG LULUCF divided the reporting of LULUCF under the Convention into six land categories, including:

Forest land
Cropland
Grassland
Wetlands
Settlements
Other land

A new common reporting format was also adopted with this decision. Reporting categories are divided into greenhouse gases and land uses. The land categories are divided into lands remaining in the same land use category (for example, forest lands that remain as such) and lands converted into another land use category (for example, forest lands converted into croplands) during the inventory period.

The secretariat incorporated these tables of the common reporting format for LULUCF and relevant technical modifications in the UNFCCC guidelines on annual inventories (FCCC/SBSTA/2004/8). A new version of the CRF Reporter which includes the LULUCF tables based on the guidelines adopted in decision 13/CP.9 has been made available to Annex I Parties to facilitate inventory submissions in 2006.