Bilbao, 13 May 2019

The IPCC task force on national greenhouse gas inventories (TFI) has completed the new methodological report redefining the 2006 inventory guidelines. The final document on this new methodological report was approved at the IPCC plenary session held in Kyoto, Japan, during its 49th session this May 2019.

The world is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to confront climate change. And we cannot reduce what we cannot measure. We need to know how much greenhouse gases we emit and which human activities produce them in order to act effectively. This updated guide will enable countries to estimate their greenhouse emissions and elimination using the methods adopted, while bearing in mind where these emissions come from and how they increase or decrease over time, considering that more accurate and complete information may lead to more informed and efficient decisions and new ways of handling climate change.

The purpose of this latest IPCC report is to help countries create trust worldwide through increased transparency, coherence and comparability in their national emissions reporting as a fundamental pillar for implementing the Transparency Framework agreed on at COP24 in Katowice, in the context of the Paris Agreement.

To this end, this latest document approved by the IPCC provides a methodology facilitating increased accuracy, transparency and responsibility in measuring emissions on a global scale through the collective improvement of separately produced national inventories. Its purpose is for national use, but it may also be used regionally, locally or even in other multilateral processes requiring these estimates. The main objective of this effort was to produce a guide that would work in every country, under all circumstances, and it proposes changes to overall orientation and methodologies for sectors such as energy, industrial processes and product use, agriculture, forestry, other land uses and waste.

Specifically, this new guide was based on the work of over 280 leading scientific experts in GGE estimates and covers the latest scientific and technological advances, in addition to input from political managers and international technical experience through the report draft review process, so as to include a practical perspective for facilitating application.

Dr María José Sanz, BC3 Scientific Director, participated directly in the IPCC sessions for the adoption of the agreement held in Kyoto, Japan from 8 to 13 May. In her own words, she underscores “the importance of adopting the new methodology to improve transparency in estimating and keeping track of emissions, which serves as basis for a framework of trust enabling countries to increase their ambitions and advance in the targets accepted in the 2015 Paris Agreement”.

On his end, Dr Agustín del Prado points out “the tremendous effort of collaborative synthesis undertaken to update the pertinent methodologies in accordance with the scientific evidence of the last 10-15 years. This new report brings certain changes to the methodologies and emission factors used in estimating emissions from livestock farming, which will doubtless be able to assist in making more accurate estimates of greenhouse gases in national inventories”.

On IPCC-49

The forty-ninth term of IPCC sessions (IPCC-49) was held from 8 to 12 May 2019 at the International Conference Centre of Kyoto, Japan. The main points of its agenda were the adoption and acceptance of the methodological report entitled “2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories” (2019 Refinement).

IPCC reports are written and reviewed in several stages, thus guaranteeing their objectivity and transparency. They provide governments at all levels with scientific information on which to base the implementation of their climate policies, which are key to the international multilateral negotiations necessary to confront climate change.

Additional Information on the 49th Global Assessment Report of the IPCC  (here)

Additional Information on Dr María José Sanz:

María José Sanz (Valencia 1963), graduate and PhD in Biological Sciences, is currently the BC3 Scientific Director and has been so since 2016, following an extensive career in the field of carbon cycles, the impact of air quality on ecosystems, the mitigation of climate change through negative natural emissions (drainage) and greenhouse gas emission inventories, as well as in the sphere of multilateral negotiations on climate change. An expert on the carbon cycle in earth ecosystems with over 25 years of experience, she served on the Spanish Delegation from 2000 to 2007 as European Union negotiator. From 2007 to 2011, she worked as a senior official of the Secretariat for the Framework Convention on Climate Change and, afterwards, as coordinator of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization UNREDD Programme from 2012 to 2015. Since 2001, she has formed part of the IPCC Task Force and contributed as author and editor in all the methodological reports on IPCC inventories published, in addition to the Fourth Assessment Report of 2007.

Additional Information on Dr Agustín del Prado

Agustín del Prado (Barakaldo 1973), graduate and PhD in Biological Sciences, is currently a Ramón y Cajal researcher, leading the modelling team in the BC3 agricultural sector (2009 to the present). An expert in developing mathematical simulation models for estimating greenhouse gases and in climate change mitigation studies for livestock and agriculture, he was the lead promoter and president of RED REMEDIA (2012-2017), which groups together researchers in Spain studying the fight against climate change in agriculture, livestock and forestry. From 2002 to 2009, he did research on modelling nutrients at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (United Kingdom).

*For any notification, please get in touch with Estíbaliz Sanz, BC3 communications coordinator.  estibaliz.sanz@bc3research.org,

Tel +34 944 014 690/ Cell 675709754