Nielsen, O.-K., Baunbæk, L., Gyldenkærne, S., Bruun, H.G., Lyck, E., Thomsen, M., Mikkelsen, M.H., Albrektsen, R., Hoffmann, L., Fauser, P., Winther, M., Nielsen, M., Plejdrup, M.S., Hjelgaard, K. 2011: Improving the Greenlandic Greenhouse Gas Inventory. National Environmental Research Institute, Aarhus University. 46 pp. – NERI Technical Report No 817.
The project to improve the Greenlandic greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory was undertaken due to the recommendations made by the UNFCCC review team in connection with the 2008 and 2009 submissions by the Kingdom of Denmark.
The objective was to address all points of concern raised by the UNFCCC review team, hereby ensuring that no potential problems were raised regarding the Greenlandic inventory during the review of the 2010 submission.
The project succeeded to complete all objectives, so that the Kingdom of Denmark was able to submit a complete inventory in the full CRF format within the deadline on April 15, 2010, and to resubmit within the requested six weeks on May 27, 2010.
The improvements made to the Greenlandic GHG emission inventory were substantial. Firstly the full CRF format was implemented significantly increasing the level of detail. This required a large effort to adapt the current data system and to develop the conversion procedures to generate the xml files needed for import to the CRF Reporter. Additionally there was the need for filling out notation keys for all the sectors not occurring in Greenland.
For the cross-cutting elements of the reporting a tier 1 uncertainty estimation was made. The uncertainty estimation showed a total uncertainty of the GHG emission of 5.8 %. The GHG emission trend since the base year has been an increase of 10.6 % and the uncertainty of the trend was estimated to 3.2 percentage point. The relatively low overall uncertainty is due to the low uncertainty of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission estimation and the high share of CO2 of the total GHG emissions. A tier 1 key category analysis was made resulting in five key categories due to level in 2008 and five further key categories due to the trend. Three categories were key for both level and trend. The majority of key categories were in the energy sector, but the waste sector also has key categories, due to level or trend, while agriculture and industrial processes have key categories due to the emission trend.
An important element in the reporting is to ensure the quality of the emission estimates by implementing QA/QC procedures. Previously no documentation of the quality procedures existed even though several procedures were implemented. The documentation of the QA/QC procedures has been improved both on the sectoral level and the overall level. Additionally a number of checks were implemented in the development of the new data files used for importing data into the CRF Reporter.
For the individual source sectors numerous improvements were made. This was both related to the estimation of previously missing sources and to refining the methodologies that had been previously used.
The main improvements related to estimation of emissions from categories where emissions that had not previously been estimated, that is CO2 emissions from mineral products, CO2 emissions from solvent and other product use, N2O emissions from agricultural soils and N2O from wastewater handling.
For several source categories the estimation and/or reporting methodologies were improved; this was the case for HFCs, where the reporting where disaggregated according to more differentiated use categories. For enteric fermentation and manure management tier 2 methodologies were implemented replacing the previously used tier 1 methodology. For solid waste disposal on land a decay model was implemented similar to the IPCC tier 2 methodology. The calculation of emissions from open burning of waste was improved using the newest scientific literature available.
Emissions of indirect GHGs were estimated for the first time for the energy sector, industrial processes, solvent use and waste incineration.
For LULUCF CO2 emissions/removals were estimated for all relevant categories (forest land, cropland and grazing land) as well as CO2 emissions from liming.
The KP-LULUCF inventory for Greenland was completed for all the mandatory and elected activities and provided a very small contribution to the reduction commitment.
The changes made to the Greenlandic GHG inventory as a result of this project resulted in recalculations of the GHG emission of 14.3 Gg of CO2 equivalents in 2007, which roughly corresponds to 2 % of the total GHG emissions. The largest recalculation took place in the waste sector where the emission of GHGs increased by approximately 16 Gg of CO2 equivalents in 2007. The recalculations made in agriculture decreased the GHG emission in 2007 by approximately 2.3 Gg of CO2 equivalents.
The 2010 submission for the Kingdom of Denmark under the Kyoto Protocol was reviewed in-country in the week from September 6 to 11. During the week the Greenlandic GHG inventory was presented and the vast improvements were acknowledged by the UNFCCC expert review team. There were no critical remarks on the Greenlandic GHG inventory. It can therefore be concluded that the project achieved its objective of improving the Greenlandic GHG inventory so that it was fully accepted by the UNFCCC expert review team.
Full report in PDF-format (3,04 MB)
