8 April 1998

ENGLISH ONLY

UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

SUBSIDIARY BODY FOR SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL ADVICE

Eighth session

Bonn, 2-12 June 1998

Item 6 of the provisional agenda

1. At its seventh session, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) took note of the documents prepared by the secretariat related to the communications from Parties included in Annex I to the Convention. In particular, it took note of the annex on methodological issues contained in document FCCC/SBI/1997/19. The SBSTA invited Parties to submit to the secretariat, by 15 March 1998, their views on possible approaches aimed at resolving those methodological issues and requested the secretariat to compile them for consideration at its eighth session (FCCC/SBSTA/1997/14, para. 16 (a)).

2. Two submissions have been received.⁽¹⁾ In accordance with the procedure for miscellaneous documents, these submissions are attached and are reproduced in the language in which they were received and without formal editing.

FCCC/SBSTA/1998/MISC.2

GE.98-

Paper No. Page

1. Republic of Lebanon 3

(Submission received 19 March 1998)

FOLLOW-UP TO COP 3 AND INPUTS FROM PARTIES

TO THE SESSIONS OF THE SUBSIDIARY BODIES

2. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 4

(on behalf of the European Community and its

member States)

(Submission received 17 March 1998)

EU VIEWS ON METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES RAISED

IN FCCC/SBI/1997/19 (FIRST COMPILATION AND

SYNTHESIS OF SECOND NATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS

OF ANNEX I PARTIES)

As for the views on possible approaches aimed at resolving the methodological issues contained in document FCCC/SBI/1997/19 (First Compilation and Synthesis of second national communications from Annex I Parties), the only recommendation we can make is that all countries without exception should follow one standard methodology and one reporting format to calculate Green House Gases "GHG" emissions by sources and removals by sinks.

This is necessary in order, at a later stage, to perform a comparison exercise among countries' results. If several guidelines are used, the comparison activity cannot be made and contribution from different countries to total GHG emissions cannot be generated.

We have observed that none of the reporting parties provide or give information on Agricultural soils and land-use change and forestry as requested by the FCCC Guidelines. We do support the explanation you have mentioned in Page 39 para 10 of the Annex, since in Lebanon, we are facing the same problems, these sectors require a highly specific input data that is not found in the country.

Therefore, we do appreciate if you reconsider this sector mainly Agricultural Soils. Also we do consider that the inclusion of GWP conversion data should be requested as part of the inventory and not kept optional as mentioned in para 25 (Annex) ,because it is an indicator of how much each country is contributing to the Climate Change.

Finally, we ask the concerned bodies of the convention to urge developed countries to provide complete information on GHG emissions since they constitute the major GHG sources.

On the question of possible approaches aimed at resolving the methodological issues covered in document FCCC/SBI/1997/19, the EU recalls its comments made at the SBSTA seventh session in Bonn in October 1997.

The EU however notes that a number of methodological issues in the Secretariat paper, in particular those relating to HFCs etc and sinks, may need to be revisited in the light of the Kyoto Protocol. The EU further notes that the Protocol has probably raised additional methodological issues, for example how to calculate baselines for clean development mechanism projects.

The EU notes that it will be necessary to produce guidelines for the provision of supplementary information under the provisions of Article 7 of the Protocol. These guidelines would be supplementary to the existing Annex I Guidelines as agreed at the Second Conference of Parties and should be developed taking into account the IPCC's continuing work programme on emissions inventory methodologies.

In document FCCC/SBI/1997/19, the secretariat listed various issues which need further study, like: 1. criteria for reporting on policies and measures; 2. further disaggregation of HFCs, PFCs and SF6 into gas species because of significant differences in GWPs; 3. adequate provision of information on agricultural soils and land-use change and forestry; 4. recalculation of inventories for other reasons than use of revised guidelines; 5. future changes in GWP values; 6. assumptions related to definitions of anthropogenic activities in the land-use change and forestry sector. The EU realises that this list of study items might not be complete. Other issues are likely to come up in the near future, based on new Annex I National Communications becoming available and experiences during the in-depth reviews.

As is the case with any reporting and monitoring instruments, FCCC guidelines for Annex I national communications also will need regular maintenance and - if necessary - improvement. In that respect, the EU welcomes the suggestions by the secretariat. In this respect the EU suggests that the FCCC secretariat - in the case of inventories, in co-operation with the IPCC/OECD/IEA inventory programme - document problems with the application of the present guidelines, as have and will come up in the compilation of all second national communications and the in-depth review of these communications.

An overview can be presented in the full compilation report on second communications, to be presented to CoP 4. Taking into account the views of CoP 4 and also the outcomes of the

in-depth-review process, to be completed before CoP 5 according to decision 9/CP.2, CoP 5 could then decide on the next revisions of the FCCC guidelines for Annex I Communications.

The EU recalls decision 3/CP.1 in which Parties are requested to make available every year an inventory of their emissions. The EU would like this valuable information to be made available to Parties every year. However, recognizing the increasing workload of the secretariat and the agreed budgetary constraints for our work, we prefer to have an overview of the information in these inventories only in the years that no compilation and synthesis report is made.

The EU encourages Parties to use, as far as possible, electronic media in their communications to the Secretariat.

The EU is aware of the fact that a lot of information concerning emissions of greenhouse gases is available also from sources other than the submissions from Parties. The information could be useful for, inter alia, reference purposes, projections and completion of overviews. Therefore the EU would like the information from these sources, such as IEA, IMO and ICAO, to be used for future in-depth reviews and compilation and synthesis reports, as appropriate.

1. In order to make these submissions available on electronic systems, including the World Wide Web, these contributions have been electronically scanned and/or retyped. The secretariat has made every effort to ensure the correct reproduction of the texts as submitted.