Emission inventory on company level: lessons from Russia

Developing a transparent,accurate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissionsinventory is the first step toward buildingan effective GHG management system. Todate, GHG inventories have been conductedprimarily at national levels. Theinternationally accepted inventorymethodology developed by theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) is oriented to countrywideinventories. The electricity company RAOUESR is the largest single corporateemitter of GHG in the Russian Federation. The company is responsible for about 1/3 ofRussia's CO₂ emissions; RAO's fossil fuelemissions are comparable to the fossil fuelemissions of the United Kingdom. The GHGinventory prepared by RAO is the first suchcorporate emissions inventory undertaken ina non-OECD country. In this article wepresent a detailed independent examinationof the methodology RAO applied for theinventory. We identify the most importantsources of uncertainty and we estimate theuncertainty. The main conclusion of theindependent review is that the methodologyutilized by RAO and the informationsupporting the methodology are reliable andpresent a reasonably accurate company-widepicture of RAO's CO₂ emissions. The shareof other greenhouse gases is negligiblysmall and we did not focus on this fractionof RAO's GHG emissions. As a next step, RAOmay wish to conduct more precisefacility-by-facility inventories in orderto create a robust GHG emission managementsystem.     

Quantifying and managing regional greenhouse gas emissions：Waste sector of Daejeon, Korea

A credible accounting of national and regional inventories for the greenhouse gas （GHG） reduction has emerged as one of the most significant current discussions. This article assessed the regional GHG emissions by three categories of the waste sector in Daejeon Metropolitan City （DMC）, Korea, examined the potential for DMC to reduce GHG emission, and discussed the methodology modified from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Korea national guidelines. During the last five years, DMC＇s overall GHG emissions were 239 thousand tons C02 eq./year from eleven public environmental infrastructure facilities, with a population of 1.52 million. Of the three categories, solid waste treatment/disposal contributes 68%, whilst wastewater treatment and others contribute 22% and 10% respectively. Among GHG unit emissions per ton of waste treatment, the biggest contributor was waste incineration of 694 kg CO2 eq./ton, followed by waste disposal of 483 kg CO2 eq./ton, biological treatment of solid waste of 209 kg CO2 eq./ton, wastewater treatment of 0.241 kg CO2 eq./m3, and public water supplies of 0.067 kg CO2 eq./m3. Furthermore, it is suggested that the potential in reducing GHG emissions from landfill process can be as high as 47.5% by increasing landfill gas recovery up to 50%. Therefore, it is apparent that reduction strategies for the main contributors of GHG emissions should take precedence over minor contributors and lead to the best practice for managing GHGs abatement.     

Errors and uncertainties in a gridded carbon dioxide emissions inventory

Emission inventories (EIs) are the fundamental tool to monitor compliance with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and emission reduction commitments. Inventory accounting guidelines provide the best practices to help EI compilers across different countries and regions make comparable, national emission estimates regardless of differences in data availability. However, there are a variety of sources of error and uncertainty that originate beyond what the inventory guidelines can define. Spatially explicit EIs, which are a key product for atmospheric modeling applications, are often developed for research purposes and there are no specific guidelines to achieve spatial emission estimates. The errors and uncertainties associated with the spatial estimates are unique to the approaches employed and are often difficult to assess. This study compares the global, high-resolution (1 km), fossil fuel, carbon dioxide (CO₂), gridded EI Open-source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO₂ (ODIAC) with the multi-resolution, spatially explicit bottom-up EI geoinformation technologies, spatio-temporal approaches, and full carbon account for improving the accuracy of GHG inventories (GESAPU) over the domain of Poland. By taking full advantage of the data granularity that bottom-up EI offers, this study characterized the potential biases in spatial disaggregation by emission sector (point and non-point emissions) across different scales (national, subnational/regional, and urban policy-relevant scales) and identified the root causes. While two EIs are in agreement in total and sectoral emissions (2.2% for the total emissions), the emission spatial patterns showed large differences (10~100% relative differences at 1 km) especially at the urban-rural transitioning areas (90–100%). We however found that the agreement of emissions over urban areas is surprisingly good compared with the estimates previously reported for US cities. This paper also discusses the use of spatially explicit EIs for climate mitigation applications beyond the common use in atmospheric modeling. We conclude with a discussion of current and future challenges of EIs in support of successful implementation of GHG emission monitoring and mitigation activity under the Paris Climate Agreement from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21). We highlight the importance of capacity building for EI development and coordinated research efforts of EI, atmospheric observations, and modeling to overcome the challenges.

     

Improving the quality of national greenhouse gas inventories

This paper summarises the findings of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Expert Meeting on Methods for the Assessment of Inventory Data Quality held in Bilthoven, The Netherlands, 5–7 November 1997. Under the Kyoto Protocol of the Climate Convention, reliable inventories of national greenhouse gases (GHG) are needed for verifying compliance. Four approaches are suggested for assessing and improving the quality of greenhouse gas inventories: inventory quality assurance; inventory comparisons; model comparisons; and direct emission measurements. The paper presents recommendations for improving the quality of emission estimates of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O).     

四川盆地气矿天然气开发过程中温室气体的排放特征

天然气开发过程是化石能源系统重要的排放源之一. 包括我国在内的发展中国家对于油气系统温室气体排放的研究尚处于起步阶段,并且也无统一的计算方法. 为研究我国天然气开发过程中温室气体排放情况,以四川盆地某较大规模(年产气量约16×108 m3)的天然气气矿为研究对象. 利用甲烷泄漏浓度检测仪对该气矿井口、集气站、配气站等场站的所有元件的潜在泄漏点进行了逐一检测,同时采集油田水和天然气样品,在实验室对油田水露天放置过程和天然气火炬燃烧过程的温室气体排放进行了模拟研究,计算了该矿2011年天然气开发过程中温室气体排放量. 结果表明:2011年研究气矿CH₄和CO₂排放量分别为1 033.32和1 295.56 t,折合CO₂当量为27 128.56 t. 与采用IPCC(政府间气候变化专门委员会)《2006年国家温室气体清单指南》第一层次方法计算的结果对比发现,IPCC方法计算结果(CH₄和CO₂排放量分别为20 287.39、12 479.74 t,折合CO₂当量为519 664.74 t)远高于实测法计算结果,因此,IPCC方法总体上严重高估了我国温室气体排放量.      

Assessing negative carbon dioxide emissions from the perspective of a national “fair share” of the remaining global carbon budget

We present an assessment of the plausible Paris-aligned fair share nett cumulative carbon dioxide (CO₂) quota for an example nation state, the Republic of Ireland. By Paris-aligned, we mean consistent with the Paris Agreement adopted at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, at Paris, France, in December 2015 (UNFCCC 2015). We compare and contrast this quota with both the aspirations expressed in the current Irish National Policy Position and current national emission projections. The fair share quota is assessed as a maximum of c. 391 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO₂), equal to 83 tonnes of carbon dioxide (tCO₂) per capita, from 2015, based on a precautionary estimate of the global carbon budget (GCB) and specific interpretation of global equity. Given Ireland’s high current CO₂ per capita emission rate, this would correspond to sustained year-on-year reductions in nett annual CO₂ emissions of over ??11% per year (beginning as of 2016). By contrast, the CO₂ mitigation target indicated in the National Policy Position corresponds to nett annual reduction rates in the range of only ?4.7% per year (low ambition) up to a maximum of ??8.3% per year (high ambition), and projections based on current and immediately planned mitigation measures indicate the possibility, instead, of sustained increases in emissions at a rate of the order of +?0.7% per year. Accordingly, there is a large gap between Paris-aligned ambition and current political and policy reality on the ground, with a significant risk of early emergence of “CO₂ debt” and tacit reliance on rapid deployment of currently speculative (at a relevant scale and feasible cost) negative CO₂ emission technologies to actively remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. While the detailed policy situation will clearly differ from country to country, we suggest that this methodology, and its CO₂debt framing, may be usefully applied in other individual countries or regions. We recommend that such framing be incorporated explicitly into a global mitigation strategy via the statements of nationally determined contributions required to be submitted and updated by all parties under the Paris Agreement processes.

     

Achieving forest carbon information with higher certainty: A five-part plan

International negotiations on the inclusion of land use activities into an emissions reduction system for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been partially hindered by the technical challenges of measuring, reporting, and verifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the policy issues of leakage, additionality, and permanence. This paper outlines a five-part plan for estimating forest carbon stocks and emissions with the accuracy and certainty needed to support a policy for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, forest conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (the REDD-plus framework considered at the UNFCCC COP-15) in developing countries. The plan is aimed at UNFCCC non-Annex 1 developing countries, but the principles outlined are also applicable to developed (Annex 1) countries. The parts of the plan are: (1) Expand the number of national forest carbon Measuring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems with a priority on tropical developing countries; (2) Implement continuous global forest carbon assessments through the network of national systems; (3) Achieve commitments from national space agencies for the necessary satellite data; (4) Establish agreed-on standards and independent verification processes to ensure robust reporting; and (5) Enhance coordination among international and multilateral organizations.     

Development of a high-resolution spatial inventory of greenhouse gas emissions for Poland from stationary and mobile sources

Greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories at national or provincial levels include the total emissions as well as the emissions for many categories of human activity, but there is a need for spatially explicit GHG emission inventories. Hence, the aim of this research was to outline a methodology for producing a high-resolution spatially explicit emission inventory, demonstrated for Poland. GHG emission sources were classified into point, line, and area types and then combined to calculate the total emissions. We created vector maps of all sources for all categories of economic activity covered by the IPCC guidelines, using official information about companies, the administrative maps, Corine Land Cover, and other available data. We created the algorithms for the disaggregation of these data to the level of elementary objects such as emission sources. The algorithms used depend on the categories of economic activity under investigation. We calculated the emissions of carbon, nitrogen sulfure and other GHG compounds (e.g., CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, SO₂, NMVOC) as well as total emissions in the CO₂-equivalent. Gridded data were only created in the final stage to present the summarized emissions of very diverse sources from all categories. In our approach, information on the administrative assignment of corresponding emission sources is retained, which makes it possible to aggregate the final results to different administrative levels including municipalities, which is not possible using a traditional gridded emission approach. We demonstrate that any grid size can be chosen to match the aim of the spatial inventory, but not less than 100 m in this example, which corresponds to the coarsest resolution of the input datasets. We then considered the uncertainties in the statistical data, the calorific values, and the emission factors, with symmetric and asymmetric (lognormal) distributions. Using the Monte Carlo method, uncertainties, expressed using 95% confidence intervals, were estimated for high point-type emission sources, the provinces, and the subsectors. Such an approach is flexible, provided the data are available, and can be applied to other countries.

     

城市能源碳排放估算方法探究

作为目前世界上最大的碳排放国家,中国在2015年巴黎气候变化大会上做出承诺,到2030年碳排放量要达到峰值并且单位GDP排放要在2005年水平上下降60%～65%.但现阶段中国碳排放数据主要集中在省级和国家层面,城市作为碳减排措施实施的主要区域,由于基础数据缺乏,长久以来没有完整的碳排放清单.为解决这一问题,本文构建了一套城市级CO_2排放估算方法.该方法从各省能源平衡表(EBT)出发,采取从省级到市级的比例分配方法,选取最为贴近城市碳排放的指标数据,对42个地级市2012年的能源消费型碳排放情况进行估算,并与中国高分辨率碳排放数据(CHRED)进行对比,发现差异均在10%以内,验证了该方法的准确性.同时揭示了此类自上而下的估算方法所带来的区域性差异,并且进一步分析了采用不同来源的化石燃料的排放因子所可能导致的不确定性,建议之后的研究在进行中国城市碳排放核算时采取最恰当的本地化化石燃料排放因子.本文为获得在时间尺度和空间尺度上均连续的中国城市碳排放数据提供了参考方法和合理思路,也能为在城市层面制定科学的碳减排措施提供可靠的数据支撑.     

Measuring countries’ cooperation within the international climate change regime

We present a method how to estimate and compare the cooperative behavior of countries within the international climate change regime. Two indicators measure whether and how fast countries have committed to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP). Three additional indicators quantify whether and how effectively measures have been implemented in line with these agreements. These three measures are reporting, financial contributions, and development of per capita CO₂ emissions in relation to the per capita gross domestic product of each country. Results show that developed countries with emission targets under the KP ratified the protocol more often and faster, submitted their report timelier, and paid their annual financial contributions to the UNFCCC secretariat more regularly than the other countries. However, concerning CO₂ emissions, developing countries are evaluated more positively than developed countries. The five indicators are aggregated to a ‘Cooperation Index’ that evaluates 198 countries’ cooperative behavior within the international climate regime on a scale between 0 (=least cooperative) and 6 (=most cooperative). According to this Cooperation Index, the following large countries are ranked after their level of cooperation in ascending order: United States of America, Australia, Russia, Canada, Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and large European countries.     

Use of IPCC GHG key sources analysis to Mexico’s environmental policy

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 key sources level 1 assessment was applied to the 1994–1994 National Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emission inventory for Mexico in order to identify and analyze the key sources within it. Top key sources were from land use change and energy combustion contributing to about 60% of total national emissions. In addition, a Tier 1 trend assessment revealed some changes with respect to Tier 1 level assessment: Top key sources according to this analysis are waste disposal and delayed emissions from land clearing. Important insight for cost effective preventive mitigation actions can be extracted from this analysis. A comparison with other countries was carried out to find similarities in the GHG national emissions inventories related to common features on economic development.     

湖北省畜禽粪便温室气体减排潜力分析

畜禽粪便是农业温室气体的重要排放源.合理的粪便管理方式可有效降低温室气体排放,同时减少环境污染.为明确不同养殖模式下适宜的粪便管理方式对温室气体减排的有效性,以湖北省为案例地,针对不同畜禽的粪便特征、区域自然条件和畜禽养殖模式等,筛选适宜的粪便管理方式;运用政府间气候变化专门委员会提出的畜禽粪便温室气体排放因子测算模型,在优化管理方式的基础上进行排放因子预测,估算由粪便管理方式改进所带来的减排潜力.结果表明,粪便管理经优化后畜禽粪便温室气体排放减少1.98~357.82 kg·头-1·a-1(以CO2当量计).根据养殖规模发展趋势预测,至2020年全省畜禽粪便优化管理所带来的减排潜力可达322.78万t(以CO2当量计).不同地区间减排效果则与当地养殖规模、养殖结构、养殖模式及适宜的畜禽粪便管理方式密切相关;畜禽种类间粪便特性的不同是其CH4和N2O减排效率迥异的主要原因;规模化养殖粪便管理方式优化是实现区域温室气体减排的重点.结合区域自然条件和畜禽养殖特征等,筛选适宜的粪便管理方式是实现区域温室气体减排的有效措施.     

Greenhouse gas mitigation and offset options for suckler cow farms: an economic comparison for the Swiss case

We assessed the economic suitability of 4 greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation options and one GHG offset option for an improvement of the GHG balance of a representative Swiss suckler cow farm housing 35 Livestock units and cultivating 25 ha grassland. GHG emissions per kilogram meat in the economic optimum differ between the production systems and range from 18 to 21.9 kg CO₂-eq./kg meat. Only GHG offset by agroforestry systems showed the potential to significantly reduce these emissions. Depending on the production system agroforestry systems could reduce net GHG emissions by 66% to 7.3 kg CO₂-eq./kg meat in the most intensive system and by 100% in the most extensive system. In this calculation a carbon sequestration rate of 8 t CO₂/ha/year was assumed. The potential of a combination of the addition of lipids to the diet, a cover of the slurry tank and the application of nitrification inhibitors only had the potential to reduce GHG emissions by 12% thereby marginal abatement costs are increasing much faster than for agroforestry systems. A reduction of the GHG emissions to 7.5 kg CO₂-eq./kg meat—possible with agroforestry only—raised costs between 0.03 CHF/kg meat and 0.38 CHF/kg meat depending on the production system and the state of the system before the reduction. If GHG emissions were reduced maximally average costs ranged between 0.37 CHF/kg meat, if agroforestry had the potential to reduce net GHG emissions to 0 kg CO₂-eq., to 1.17 CHF/kg meat if also other options had to be applied.     

Importance of Sulfate Aerosol in Evaluating the Relative Contributions of Regional Emissions to the Historical Global Temperature Change

During the negotiations of the KyotoProtocol the delegation of Brazil presentedan approach for distributing the burden ofemissions reductions among the Partiesbased on the effect of their cumulativehistorical emissions on the global-averagenear-surface temperature. The Letter tothe Parties does not limit the emissions tobe considered to be only greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions. Thus, in this paper weexplore the importance of anthropogenicSO_x emissions that are converted tosulfate aerosol in the atmosphere, togetherwith the cumulative greenhouse gasemissions, in attributing historicaltemperature change. We use historicalemissions and our simple climate model toestimate the relative contributions toglobal warming of the regional emissions byfour Parties: OECD90, Africa and LatinAmerica, Asia, and Eastern Europe and theFormer Soviet Union. Our results show thatfor most Parties the large warmingcontributed by their GHG emissions islargely offset by the correspondingly largecooling by their SO_x emissions. Thus,OECD90 has become the dominant contributorto recent global warming following itslarge reduction in SO_x emissions after1980.     

基于投入产出法的北京能源消耗温室气体排放清单分析

城市是一个巨大能源物资消耗体和温室气体排放体,相关研究受到广泛关注.本文以2007年为例基于投入产出法研究北京市能源消耗的温室气体排放量,计算得出CH4和N2O这两种常规温室气体排放量.结果表明,北京市2007年能源消耗温室气体排放量为3531.72万tCO2当量,其中CO2排放量为3514.40万t,CH4排放量为1734.32t,N2O排放量为435.83t.北京市工业部门仍然是主要的温室气体排放部门,其排放的温室气体占CO2总量的98.96%,CH4总量的88.48%和N2O总量的98.99%.不同最终使用部门中,政府部门消费产生的温室气体排放量超过总量的15%,高于城镇消费和农村消费之和;调出和出口部门的碳排放量超过总量的40%,所占比例最大.贸易中,隐含在调出和出口部门中温室气体排放量是隐含在调入和进口部门的十几倍.北京市不同行业的温室气体排放强度略优于全国水平.降低北京市温室气体排放量可从进一步优化产业结构,发挥科技减排的作用,提高不同产业的能源利用率等方面采取措施.     

Carbon mitigation potential of Indian steel industry

Steel dominates the global metal production accounting for 5 % of increase in Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). Today, India is the 4th largest producer of crude steel in the world. The sector contributes around 3 % to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) but adds 6.2 % to the national greenhouse gas (GHG) load. It accounts for 28.4% of the entire industry sector emissions, which are 23.9% of the country’s total emissions. Being a developing country, India is not obliged to cut its emissions under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), but gave voluntary commitment to reduce the emission intensity of its GDP by 20–25 % from the 2005 level by 2020. This paper attempts to find out if the Indian steel sector can help the country in fulfilling this commitment. The sector reduced its CO₂ emissions per ton of steel produced by 58% from 1994 to 2007. The study generates six scenarios for future projections which show that the sector can reduce its emission intensity by 12.5 % to 63 %. But going by the conservative estimates, the sector can reduce emission intensity by 30 % to 53 %. However, actual emissions will go up significantly in every case.     

Greenhouse gas emissions in restored secondary tropical peat swamp forests

Restoration of deforested and drained tropical peat swamp forests is globally relevant in the context of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The seasonal flux of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O) in a restoration concession in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, was measured in the two contrasting land covers: shrubs and secondary forests growing on peatlands. We found that land covers had high, but insignificantly different, soil carbon stocks of 949?+?56 and 1126?+?147 Mg ha^?1, respectively. The mean annual CO₂ flux from the soil of shrub areas was 52.4?±?4.1 Mg ha^?1 year^?1, and from secondary peat swamp forests was 42.9?±?3.6 Mg ha^?1 year^?1. The significant difference in mean soil temperature in the shrubs (31.2 °C) and secondary peat swamp forests (26.3 °C) was responsible for the difference in total CO₂ fluxes of these sites. We also found the mean annual total soil respiration was almost equally partitioned between heterotrophic respiration (20.8?+?1.3 Mg ha^?1 year^?1) and autotrophic respiration (22.6?+?1.5 Mg ha^?1 year^?1). Lowered ground water level up to ??40 cm in both land covers caused the increase of CO₂ fluxes to 40–75%. These numbers contribute to the provision of emission factors for rewetted organic soils required in the national reporting using the 2013 Supplement of the 2006 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines for wetlands as part of the obligation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

     

Pledges for climate mitigation: the effects of the Copenhagen accord on CO2 emissions and mitigation costs

The UN Framework Convention of Climate Change 15th Conference of the Parties Copenhagen Accord has been followed up by national pledges of greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the year 2020 without specifying measures to enforce actions. As a consequence, the capacity of parties to fulfil their obligations is of basic interest. This article outlines the effects of full compliance with pledges on greenhouse gas emissions, economic growth, and trade. The study is based on the global computable general equilibrium model global responses to anthropogenic changes in the environment (GRACE) distinguishing between fossil and non-fossil energy use. Global emissions from fossil fuels in 2020 turn out to be 15 % lower than in a business as usual scenario and 3 % below the global emissions from fossil fuels in 2005. China and India increase their emissions to 1 % and 5 % above business as usual levels in 2020. India and Russia increase their net export of steel corresponding to around 30 and 45 % of their production levels in 2020. In spite of some leakage of energy intensive production also to China, we find that structural change remains the dominant factor behind the rapid reduction of CO₂ emission intensity in China towards 2020.