The EU GHG Inventory System

The annual greenhouse gas inventory of the European Community is required for two purposes.

Firstly, the European Community (EU-15), as the only regional economic integration organization having joined the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol as a party, has to report annually on greenhouse inventories within the area covered by its Member States.

Secondly, under the monitoring mechanism, the European Commission has to assess annually whether the actual and projected progress of Member States is sufficient to ensure fulfillment of the EC's commitments under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. For this purpose, the Commission has to prepare a progress evaluation report, which has to be forwarded to the European Parliament and the Council. The annual EC inventory is the basis for the evaluation of actual progress.

The legal basis of the compilation of the EC inventory is the Council Decision No 280/2004/EC, concerning a mechanism for monitoring Community greenhouse gas emissions and for implementing the Kyoto Protocol, and the Commission Decision 2005/166/EC laying down rules for implementing it. The purpose of the Council decision is to:

1. monitor all anthropogenic GHG emissions covered by the Kyoto Protocol in the Member States;

2. evaluate progress towards meeting GHG reduction commitments under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol;

3. implement the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol as regards national programmes, greenhouse gas inventories, national systems and registries of the Community and its Member States, and the relevant procedures under the Kyoto Protocol;

4. ensure the timeliness, completeness, accuracy, consistency, comparability and transparency of reporting by the Community and its Member States to the UNFCCC Secretariat.

The compilation of the EC inventory is a joint activity of the Member States and the European Commission (DG Environment), supported by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and its European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC), Eurostat, and the Joint Research Centre (JRC). The process of compiling the EC GHG inventory is as follows: Member States submit their annual GHG inventories by 15 January each year to the European Commission, DG Environment. Then, the EEA and it's ETC/ACC, Eurostat and JRC perform initial checks on the submitted data. The draft EC GHG inventory and inventory report are circulated to Member States for reviewing and commenting by 28 February. Member States check their national data and information used in the EC GHG inventory report, send updates, if necessary, and review the EC inventory report itself by 15 March. The final EC GHG inventory report are prepared by the EEA and ETC/ACC by 15 April for submission by the European Commission to the UNFCCC Secretariat; a resubmission is prepared by 27 May, if needed.

European Community's Green House Gas Inventory ( EC GHG Inventory ) submitted in 2008 shows the trend of emission of greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2006 for EU-27, EU-15, individual Member States and economic sectors. To note that, between 2005 and 2006, cumulated emissions within the EU-27 fell by 0.3 %, and now stand 7.7 % below 1990 levels (without considering net sink of LULUCF). Emissions in the 15 pre-2004 Member States (EU-15) decreased by 0.8% and now stand 2.7% below their levels in the base year (1990 in most cases). Over 1990-2006 reporting span, the EU sink capacity increased by 23 % for EU 27 and 34 % for EU 15.