Delegated regulation 2014/666 - Substantive requirements for a Union inventory system and taking into account changes in the global warming potentials and internationally agreed inventory guidelines pursuant to Regulation 525/2013 - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 179/26

The mechanism for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to enable the assessment of the actual progress towards meeting the Union's and the Member States' commitments relating to the limitation or reduction of all greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) approved by Council Decision 94/69/EC (2), its Kyoto Protocol approved by Council Decision 2002/358/EC (3) and the set of Union legal acts, adopted in 2009, collectively referred to as the ‘Climate and Energy Package’.

Decision 19/CMP.1 of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol lays down the guidelines for national systems the Parties should apply. The rules on the Union inventory system should therefore be specified in order to fulfil the obligations pursuant to that Decision, ensuring the timeliness, transparency, accuracy, consistency, comparability and completeness of reporting of greenhouse gas emissions to the UNFCCC Secretariat.

To ensure the quality of the Union inventory system, it is necessary to establish further rules on the Union greenhouse gas inventory quality assurance and quality control programme.

In order to ensure completeness of the Union's inventory in accordance with the guidelines for preparing the national greenhouse gas inventories it is necessary to provide for the methodologies and the data to be used by the Commission when, in consultation and close cooperation with the Member State concerned, preparing estimates for data missing from a Member State inventory pursuant to Article 9(2) of Regulation (EU) No 525/2013.

In order to ensure the timely and effective implementation of Union's obligations under the Kyoto Protocol of the UNFCCC it is necessary to set the timescales for cooperation and coordination during the annual reporting process and the UNFCCC review between Member States and the Union.

Account should be taken of changes in the global warming potential values and internationally agreed guidelines for national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks in accordance with relevant decisions adopted by the bodies of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.

In order to ensure consistency with the implementation of monitoring and reporting requirements under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, this Regulation should apply from 1 January 2015,

the completeness of the Union greenhouse gas inventory by applying the procedure set out in Article 9(2) of Regulation (EU) No 525/2013;

that the Union greenhouse gas inventory provides a transparent aggregation of Member States' greenhouse gas emissions and removals by sinks and reflects in a transparent manner the contribution of Member States' emissions and removals by sinks to the Union greenhouse gas inventory;

that the total of the Union's greenhouse gas emissions and removals by sinks for a reporting year is equal to the sum of Member States' greenhouse gas emissions and removals by sinks reported pursuant to paragraphs 1 to 5 of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 for that same year;

that the Union greenhouse gas inventory includes a consistent time series of emissions and removals by sinks for all reported years.

where a Member State has submitted in the previous reporting year a consistent time series of estimates for the relevant source category that has not been subject to adjustments under Article 5(2) of the Kyoto Protocol and any of the following occurs:

where an estimate for the relevant source category was subject to adjustments under Article 5(2) of the Kyoto Protocol in previous years and the Member State concerned has not submitted a revised estimate, on the basic adjustment method used by the expert review team as set out in the technical guidance on methodologies for adjustments under Article 5(2) of the Kyoto Protocol without application of the conservativeness factor defined in that guidance;

where an estimate for the relevant category was subject to technical corrections under point (c) of Article 19(3) of Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 in previous years and the Member State concerned has not submitted a revised estimate, on the method used by the technical expert review team to calculate the technical correction;

where a consistent time series of reported estimates for the relevant source category is not available and the estimate of the source category has not been subject to adjustments under Article 5(2) of the Kyoto Protocol, on the technical guidance for adjustments, without application of the conservativeness factor defined in that guidance.

indications from an expert review team of any potential problem with the Member State's greenhouse gas inventory related to requirements of a mandatory nature and which could lead to an adjustment or a potential question of implementation (the ‘Saturday paper’), within one week of receiving the information from the UNFCCC Secretariat;

corrections to the estimates of greenhouse gas emissions applied in agreement between the Member State and the expert review team to the greenhouse gas inventory submission concerned during the review process as contained in the response to the indications referred to under point (a), within one week of submitting it to the UNFCCC Secretariat;

the draft individual inventory review report that contains the adjusted estimates of greenhouse gas emissions or a question of implementation where the Member State has not resolved the problem raised by the expert review team, within one week of receiving that report from the UNFCCC Secretariat;

the response by the Member State to the draft individual inventory review report in case where a proposed adjustment is not accepted accompanied by a summary in which the Member State indicates whether it accepts or rejects any of the proposed adjustments, within one week of submitting the response to the UNFCCC Secretariat;

the final individual inventory review report, within one week of receiving it from the UNFCCC Secretariat;

any question of implementation that has been submitted to the Compliance Committee of the Kyoto Protocol, the notification by the Compliance Committee to proceed with a question of implementation, and all preliminary findings and decisions of the Compliance Committee and its branches concerning the Member State, within one week of receiving it from the UNFCCC Secretariat.

within the timeframes provided under the Kyoto Protocol, if the adjusted estimates in a single year or the cumulative adjustments in subsequent years of the commitment period for one or more Member States would imply adjustments to the Union greenhouse gas inventory in a quantity leading to a failure to meet the methodological and reporting requirements under Article 7(1) of the Kyoto Protocol for the purpose of the eligibility requirements as set out in the guidelines adopted under Article 7 of the Kyoto Protocol;

within two weeks prior to the submission of:

the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories;

the IPCC 2013 Revised Supplementary Methods and Good Practice Guidance Arising from the Kyoto Protocol;

the 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas inventories: Wetlands for wetland drainage and rewetting listed in Article 7(1)(d) of Regulation (EU) No 525/2013;

the UNFCCC guidelines for the preparation of national communications by Parties included in Annex I to the Convention, part I: UNFCCC reporting guidelines on annual inventories as set out in Decision 24/CP.19 of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC;

the guidelines for the preparation of the information required under Article 7 of the Kyoto Protocol as adopted by Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.