• It is important to recognize that the 2006 IPCC Guidelines “are an evolutionary development starting from the Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines, GPG2000 and GPG-LULUCF. A fundamental shift in methodological approach would pose difficulties with time series consistency in emissions and removals estimation, and incur additional costs, since countries and the international community have made significant investments in inventory systems. An evolutionary approach helps ensure continuity and allows for incorporation of experiences with the existing guidelines, new scientific information, and the results of the UNFCCC review process.” Please refer to the short Overview Chapter of the 2006 IPCC Guidelines, page 8.
• The improvements in the 2006 IPCC guidelines can be characterized as improved accuracy, completeness, clearer guidance, reduced scope for errors and resources-relevant methods. For example, with respect to clearer guidance it would be useful to note that the previous IPCC inventory guidance has been reviewed and, where needed, clarified and expanded to improve its user friendliness.
• In addition, the use of the 2006 IPCC guidelines would also facilitate comparability extensively among all Parties’ national greenhouse gas inventories. As it is known, Annex I Parties to the UNFCCC are obliged to use the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for estimating and reporting GHGs emissions by sources and removals by sinks in their annual GHG Inventories under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol since 2015.