In accordance with Article 4, paragraph 1 and Article 12, paragraph 1, each Party shall communicate to the Conference of the Parties, through the secretariat, the following elements of information:
- A national inventory of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, to the extent its capacities permit, using comparable methodologies to be promoted and agreed upon by the Conference of the Parties.
- A general description of steps taken or envisaged by the Party to implement the Convention.
- Any other information the Party considers relevant to the achievement of the objective of the Convention and suitable for inclusion in its communication, including, if feasible, material relevant for calculations of global emission trends.
Guidelines for the preparation of initial NCs from non-Annex I Parties were adopted at COP 2 in Geneva in 1996. COP 5 (Bonn, 1999) initiated a process of reviewing the guidelines, with the aim of improving them and established a Consultative Group of Experts on National Communications from non-Annex I Parties (CGE) in order to improve the process of preparation of NCs by non-Annex I Parties. The CGE made major contributions to the review of the guidelines. At COP 8 (New Delhi, 2002) Parties adopted revised guidelines ( decision 17/CP.8).
These training materials are designed to facilitate the preparation of National Communications (NC) by non-Annex I Parties can be found here.