FCCC/PA/CMA/2021/8
18
management strategies; national resource plans; energy road maps; national forest reports;
and socioeconomic forecasts.
85. Many Parties presented information on the circumstances in which they may update
the values of their reference indicators, such as owing to significant changes in specific
financial, economic, technological and/or political conditions, or to impacts due to extreme
natural disasters; or depending on scale of access to support and other means of
implementation, expected improvements or modifications to activity data, variables or
methodologies used in estimating national emissions, baselines or projections, or the results
of the ongoing negotiations on common metrics; or to reflect the actual situation during the
implementation period.
E. Assumptions and methodological approaches, including for estimating
and accounting for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and, as
appropriate, removals
1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change methodologies and metrics
86. Most Parties communicated information on the IPCC methodologies they used for
estimating emissions and removals. Many referred to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines and some to
the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, while a few
others mentioned that they used both sets of guidelines to cover different sectors.
87. Many Parties provided information on the metrics they used for estimating emissions
and removals. Many of them used GWP values over a 100-year time-horizon from the AR5,
while some used such values from the AR2 and some those from the AR4. A few Parties
used GWP values as well as global temperature potential values from the AR5 for estimating
their mitigation targets.
88. Most Parties also communicated information on the assumptions and methodological
approaches to be used for accounting anthropogenic GHG emissions and, as appropriate,
removals, corresponding to their NDCs. Most of them referred to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines,
while some others referred to the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse
Gas Inventories or the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National
Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Some also mentioned the IPCC Good Practice Guidance and
Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and/or the IPCC Good
Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry.
89. In addition, some Parties also referred to the standard methods and procedures
contained in the 2013 Revised Supplementary Methods and Good Practice Guidance Arising
from the Kyoto Protocol and the 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National
Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands.
2. Assumptions and methodological approaches
90. Many Parties expressed mitigation targets as a deviation from a ‘business as usual’
level, with many presenting quantitative baselines and mitigation scenarios and most
providing updated information on the assumptions and approaches used to develop ‘business
as usual’ scenarios, baselines or projections, such as baselines and projections being based
on historical data and trends in emissions and economic parameters. Most of those Parties
referred to key parameters and variables such as GDP and population and growth thereof,
and cost–benefit analysis. They also provided sector-specific parameters, including energy
consumption, energy demand and production, electricity grid capacity, urbanization rate,
transportation network changes and vehicle numbers, forest growth rate, livestock trends, per
capita waste generation, and energy and waste statistics per tourist.
91. Some Parties communicated additional information on other approaches used for
estimating sector- or activity-specific emissions or baselines, including using regional data
sources for downscaling data or generating data at the national level, and calculation tools or
approaches for estimating short-lived climate pollutants or precursor emissions. A few
Parties mentioned using specific modelling tools for estimating their emissions or baselines,
such as The Integrated Market Allocation-Energy Flow Optimization Model System, Long-