Published by
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Year
2017

Guide for Peer Review of National GHG Inventories

Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change submit information on the implementation of the Convention, including national actions to mitigate and adapt to the climate change as well as inventory of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by sources and removals by sinks. Developing countries submit this information through national communications every four years and biennial update reports every two years. The greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories form the core of part of these reports. Developing a national GHG inventory requires robust institutional arrangements, quality inputs (data, emission factors), understanding of the appropriate calculation methods, and capacity to compile a complete report. Developing countries continue to face challenges at each step of the GHG inventory development process, including the process to establish and apply quality assurance and quality control. With a view to overcoming this challenge, the secretariat, with the support of the Global Support Programme (GSP) for National Communications and Biennial Update Reports (GSP), prepared this guide with the objective of:

  1. Providing clear guidance for the peer-review of national GHG inventory reports and national GHG inventory management systems, to achieve higher quality reporting, through the use of Quality Assurance and Quality Control procedures in a non-intrusive or punitive manner;
  2. Achieving enhanced capacity of national experts involved in the process of the preparation of national GHG inventories to develop high quality, transparent, national GHG inventory reports and maintain sustainable national GHG inventory management systems;
  3. Facilitating the enhanced process of Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) of national GHG inventory reports, both across countries (peer-review) and within countries (expert-review).