In preparing their national communications and GHG inventories, Annex I Parties must follow reporting guidelines.  These guidelines have now been revised twice, at COP 2 (Geneva, July 1996) for the preparation of the second round of communications, and again at COP 5 (Bonn, October/November 1999), where revised reporting guidelines were adopted for the preparation of third national communications.  The same guidelines were used for the preparation of the fourth and fifth national communications that were due by 1 January 2010.

Current guidelines for the preparation of national communications of Annex I Parties (pages 80—100 of the English version, FCCC/CP/1999/7 (391 kB) )

To facilitate a process for Annex I Parties to officially submit their annual inventory submissions under the Convention and supplementary information required under Article 7, paragraph 1, of the Kyoto Protocol, and national communications, the UNFCCC secretariat has created a simple and user-friendly web-based interface called the "UNFCCC Submission Portal". The portal allows Annex I Parties to easily and securely upload the required submissions. The portal also allows Parties to view the status of the submissions made using the system.

Integrated with the secretariat's internal processes for receiving and processing submissions, the system will progressively replace the various submission channels used in the past.

The UNFCCC Submission Portal is available to Annex I Parties and fully operational as of 16 February 2009.

Questions relating to the use of the submission portal should be addressed to: GHGINVAI@unfccc.int .