Development of the IPCC Greenhouse Gas Inventory Software

null

This action aims to support the development of the IPCC greenhouse gas inventory software (hereafter Software) to be used by countries (in particular developing countries) to prepare their national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGI) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement (PA). The Software is developed by the Technical Support Unit (TSU) of the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The TSU is based at and hosted by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Japan.

The proposal should set out steps to contribute to all of the following impacts:

• Better informed science and policy through the availability of timely, accurate and consistent data on anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and removals world-wide;
• More effective implementation of the UNFCCC and the PA through facilitating timely and complete reporting under the PA;
• Sub-national mitigation actions tracked and reported in a more transparent and consistent manner.

Expected outcomes:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• A software tool, available free of charge, facilitating the preparation of complete, accurate and timely NGHGIs using any of the methods provided by IPCC TFI, including uncertainty analysis, key category analysis, recalculation and time series export;
• Facilitating sub-national estimation of national GHG emissions and removals, as well as tracking of mitigation actions (e.g. under Article 6 of the PA) in a consistent manner;
• Interoperability with the UNFCCC ETF Reporting Tool, allowing users to populate all UNFCCC common reporting tables;
• Possibility to archive all information in a single national database, which is at the core of national inventory systems;
• Demonstrated progress towards a free-to-all, open-source inventory software that can run on any operating system and allowing interoperability with existing national inventory systems.

Scope:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is recognised as the most authoritative source of knowledge about climate change. The EU is an observer in the IPCC, and has been a significant contributor to its work over the years, including the preparation of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

The preparation and reporting of annual NGHGI has been mandated by the UNFCCC for all developed country (Annex I) Parties. More recently, the PA expanded the reporting obligation to all countries through the enhanced transparency framework (ETF). Whilst Annex I Parties have been reporting their NGHGIs for decades and have more advanced inventory systems, many developing countries face challenges in preparing their inventories in a timely manner and to the desired standards. The improvement of the accuracy and completeness of all NGHGIs is a constant challenge.

NGHGIs must follow the IPCC’s methodology and reporting guidelines. They are also a vital information source for scientific work, as a key data source for global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and removals with considerable geographical and sectoral granularity. Thus they are crucial both for policy formulation and tracking, and scientific analysis and assessments.

Work on the Software is divided into two stages, partly happening in parallel. Stage 1 is aimed at completing the existing software, in particular with functions of uncertainty analysis, key category analysis, recalculation and time series export and other refinements. Stage 2 will be aimed at migrating the software to an open source platform, to increase its transparency and to make it compatible with operating systems other than Windows. This action aims to support Stage 1, bringing it to completion, with some elements also contributing to Stage 2.

Specific Conditions: Subcontracting is not restricted to a limited part of the action.