Simon Eggleston, IPCC National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme (NGGIP), outlined the background, objectives and scope of 2006 IPCC Guidelines, including the improved IPCC Emission Factor Database (EFDB) and the work programme for achieving the Guidelines. He explained that the 2006 IPCC Guidelines build upon the 1996 Guidelines for greenhouse gas inventories, the 2000 and 2003 Good Practice Guidance (GPG) reports, and scientific and technical developments since the 1990s. He said the 2006 Guidelines could include new gases, such as new halogenated direct greenhouse gases and other indirect greenhouse gases, which would be selected on the basis of criteria such as relative importance to total emissions. He said that the 2006 Guidelines would focus on cross-cutting issues, energy, industrial processes and product use, agriculture, forestry and other land use and waste.
Taka Hiraishi, IPCC, said the IPCC’s work concerns the harmonization of emissions estimations, rather than emissions predictions. Answering a participant’s question on whether the merger of the GPG and IPCC Guidelines meant a review of the GPG for land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), Hiraishi noted that this would depend on the decision of Parties. When asked whether the IPCC would give advice for country-specific emission factors, he responded that it is beyond the IPCC’s capability to advise a country in such specificity, especially in the case of Annex I Parties, although they could provide help to non-Annex I Parties.
Leandro Buendia, IPPC-NGGIP, presented the Guidelines for Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land-Use (AFOLU). He noted challenges in integrating the 1996 IPCC Guidelines, the 2000 GPG, and the GPG for LULUCF into the 2006 Guidelines, including data redundancies and the re-evaluation and improvement of current default emissions. Referring to the IPCC 2006 Guidelines on AFOLU, Buendia used the agriculture subsection as an example to highlight the importance of correctly choosing methods for emission and removal factors and activity data.
Kiyoto Tanabe, IPCC-NGGIP, stated that the EFDB was necessary because the development of local and national emission factors was difficult, time-consuming, and required considerable expertise and financial resources. He noted that the EFDB would be useful for sharing data and information between countries with similar national circumstances and improving the cost effectiveness of national greenhouse gas inventories. Tanabe said that the EFDB would evolve dynamically through contributions from researchers and scientists. He outlined two procedures through which data providers could submit data by contacting the IPCC Technical Support Unit: a web application format for researching and submitting data; and a CD-ROM application for off-line research.