Page 72 English Table A.8. Anthropogenic emissions of precursor gases, 1990 (Gigagrams) 1 683 225 415 Canada 10 225 2.090 2 104 Notes Estimates corrected during the review. "The electricity import correction of 0.7 Gg was subtracted by the secretariat from the subtotal given in the communication. The electricity import correction of 24 Gg was subtracted by the secretariat from the subtotal given in the communication. • The electricity import correction of 0.1 Gg was subtracted by the secretariat from the subtotal given in the communication. The guidelines encouraged Parties to provide information on ozone precursors. However, reporting of related emissions estimates varied greatly, making comparison across Parties difficult. All Parties reported emission estimates for the precursor gases, with the exception of one Party, which only reported estimates for NO,. Information provided was limited for the agriculture, land use change and forestry and waste source/sink categories; the •Estimates from the Party expressed as N,O. Non-ferrous emissions reported as being <0.1 have not been included in this table. Provisional data for emissions from international aircraft ground movement and landing and take-off cycle, as well as coastal shipping were provided during the review and subtracted by the secretariat from related emission figures in the UK supplementary submission dated 24 August 1994. Emissions from the Party's territories were not estimated. contribution of these sources to total aggregate emissions was small in comparison to those from fuel combustion. For the three gases, the largest source of emissions came from the transport sub-source/category, followed by other energy activities for CO and NO,. The importance of solvent use as a major source of NMVOC was also confirmed. Figure A.4. Relative contribution of different greenhouse gases by Party Excludes land use change and forestry. Other includes PFCs, HFCs, and SF, IPCC-1994 GWP values with a time-horizon of 100 years, previously unavailable, were used by the secretariat for comparative purposes. New Zealand reported emissions for PFCs of 0.1 Gg. The secretariat has assumed that approximately 5 per cent of these emissions are from C,F, and the remaining 95 per cent from CF.. Comments CO, was the most significant anthropogenic greenhouse gas representing 75 per cent of total emissions reported. For 13 Parties, CO, contributed more than 70 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. The relative importance of other gases varied from Party to Party. For one Party, the contribution of CH, was larger than that of CO2. In another case, the importance of other gases was higher than for any other Party because of aluminium smelting. Page 73 English g:\review\usa\usarep2.fin Draft 26 January 1996 UNITED STATES Report on the in-depth review of the national communication of the United States of America Review team: Rodito Buan, Philippines Trevor Morgan, International Energy Agency Peer Stiansen, UNFCCC secretariat, Coordinator Under Articles 4 and 12 of the Convention, Parties are required in prepare national communications on their implementation of the Convention. Guidelines for the preparation of national communications and the process for their review were agreed on by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change, by its decisions 9/2 and 10/1, and by the Conference of the Parties, at its first session, by its decisions 2/CP.1 and 3/CP.1 (see FCCC/CP/1995/7/Add.1). In accordance with these decisions, a compilation and synthesis of the first 15 national communications from Annex I Parties was prepared (A/AC.237/81). When reviewing the implementation of the Convention by Parties, the subsidiary bodies and the Conference of the Parties will have this report available to them in English as well as the summary of the report in the six official languages of the United Nations. (These bodies will also have before them the cxecutive summary of the first national communication of the United States of America and country-specific information drawn from a compilation and synthesis report covering all countries that have submitted national commimications.) 1. 3. Summary The in-depth review was carried out between April and August 1995 and included a visit by the team from 22 to 26 May 1995. The team included experts from the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the International Energy Agency. 2. The team found the national communication of the United States of America to be generally transparent, well-documented and presented in accordance with the reporting guidelines established for Annex I Parties and recognized that the author country had put major resources into the preparation of the background material for the various sections. 3. The United States of America, having the world's largest economy, is responsible for slightly less than one fourth of glohal carhon dioxide (CO) emissions (4520 Mt 080 Gg in 1990) and has the highest emissions of CO, per capita (20 tons compared to an average of 12 tons in countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), among the Partics that have submitted their communicativus. Another key factor identified by the team was the fact that low energy prices in the United States are likely to have created significant untapped potential for cost effective limited incentives for energy efficiency improvements and greenhouse gas emission reductions. 4. The team noted that greenhouse gas emission and removal estimates are highly uncertain in several sectors where the United States hopes to achieve significant reductions in net emissions, but acknowledged that the United States is putting a great deal of effort into reducing these uncertainties. In particular, the team noted the uncertainty surrounding United States estimates of removals of carbon resulting from anthropogenic activity and believes there is a need to develop common international definitions of "forest land" and "managed forest". S. The United States Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) builds and expands upon existing legislation and is primarily made up of a variety of mechanisms to promote and facilitatc voluntary actions to deal with emissions of CO2, methane (CH), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) and perfluorocarbons (PFC) as well as CO, removals by sinks. Efforts to mitigate climate change in the United States have been hampered by the fact that the United States Congress only approved percut less than 50 per cent of the funding required to implement the CCAP in its fust year and that it appears likely that the second year of the CCAP will also receive only partial funding an even lower share. Moreover, funding to implement important prc-CCAP programmes, for example under die 1992 Energy Policy Act, has also been cut back by more than 40 per cent and the methane landfill regulation is yet to be issued. The United States is now undertaking, with the participation of industry and environmental stakeholders, an official review on the status of implementation of the CCAP that will be made public in October 1995 early 1996. 6. The team concluded that the innovative nature of a number of these measures warrant their consideration by other countries as one element of a climate change response strategy. In particular, other countries can benefit from the work the United States has done to create |