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| Roles and Responsibilities |
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| Summary |
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| The UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHGI) is compiled and maintained by AEA under contract to the Climate, Energy, Science, and Analysis (CESA) team in the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). |
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| AEA is directly responsible for producing the emissions estimates for CRF categories: Energy (CRF Sector 1), Industrial Processes (CRF Sector 2), Solvent and Other Product Use (CRF Sector 3), and Waste (CRF Sector 6). AEA is also responsible for inventory planning, data collection, QA/QC and inventory management and archiving. |
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| Emissions from the agricultural sector (Sector 4) are provided by Defra’s Farming and Food Science Team via a contract with North Wyke Research (NWRes). |
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| Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry emissions (CRF Sector 5) are calculated by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), under separate contract to CESA. |
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| National Inventory System Requirements |
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| The Marrakesh Accords of the Kyoto Protocol (Decision 20/CP7) define the requirements for National Inventory Systems (NIS), including the need to establish legal, procedural and insitutional arrangements to ensure that all parties to the Protocol estimate and report their GHG emissions in accordance with relevant decisions of the COP, facilitate UNFCCC Reviews and improve the quality of their inventories. Under related EU legislation set out in Decision 280/2004/EC, the UK was required to have in place it's NIS by 31st December 2005. |
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| The development of more formal agreements between DECC and Key Data Providers (KDPs) is ongoing and a number of formal Data Supply Agreements (DSAs) are now in place. |
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| The figure below shows the main elements in the UK NIS. DECC is the Single National Entity responsible for submitting the UK's GHGI to the UNFCCC. AEA compiles the GHGI on behalf of DECC, and produces disaggregated estimates for the Devolved Administrations within the UK.
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| KDPs include other Government Departments such as Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Transport (DfT), Non-Departmental Public Bodies such as the Environment Agency for England and Wales (EA), the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), private companies such as Corus, and business organisations such as UK Petroleum Industry Association (UKPIA) and the British Cement Association (BCA). |
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| The organisational Structure of the UK NIS can be summarised as follows: |
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| The following sections summarise the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the UK NIS. |
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| Single National Entity: DECC |
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| As the designated Single National Entity for the UK GHG NIS, DECC has the following roles and responsibilities: |
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| National Inventory System Management & Planning |
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Chair of NISC and management of the Improvement Programme; |
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Overall control of the NIS development & function; |
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Management of contracts & delivery of GHGI; |
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Definition of performance criteria for NIS key organisations. |
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| Development of Legal & Contractual Infrastructure |
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Review of legal & organisational structure; |
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Implementation of legal instruments and contractual developments as required to meet guidelines. |
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| Inventory Agency: AEA |
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| As the designated Inventory Agency for the UK GHG NIS, AEA has the following roles and responsibilities: |
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| Planning |
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Co-ordination with DECC to deliver the NIS; |
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Review of current NIS performance and assessment of required development action; |
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Scheduling of tasks and responsibilities to deliver GHG inventory and NIS. |
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| Preparation |
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Drafting technical schedules to Data Supply Agreements with key data providers; |
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Review of source data & identification of developments required to improve GHG inventory data quality. |
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| Management |
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Documentation & archiving; |
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Dissemination of information regarding NIS to KDPs; |
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Management of inventory QA/QC plans, programmes and activities. |
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| Inventory Compilation |
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Data acquisition, processing and reporting; |
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Delivery of NIR (including associated CRF tables) to time and quality. |
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| Key Data Providers |
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| Within the UK GHG NIS, organisations that are Key Data Providers have the following roles and responsibilities: |
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| Data Quality, Format, Timeliness, Security |
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Delivery of source data in appropriate format and in time for inventory compilation, allowing for all required QA/QC procedures by the Inventory Agency; |
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Management of their data acquisition, processing & reporting systems, taking regard for QA/QC requirements and responding to Inventory Agency requests for clarifications; |
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Identification of any required organisational or legal development and resources to meet more stringent NIS data requirements, notably the security of data provision in the future; |
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Communication with DECC, AEA and their peers / members to help to disseminate information regarding the GHG inventory and National System. |
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| Summary of Key Data Sources |
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Energy statistics required for compilation of the NAEI and the GHGI are obtained from the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES). DUKES is compiled and published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). DUKES is available here.
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| Information on industrial processes is provided either directly to AEA by the individual plant operators or from: |
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The Environment Agency's Pollution Inventory (PI) for England & Wales; |
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The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency’s Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory (SPRI); |
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The Northern Ireland Environment Agency’s Inventory of Statutory Releases (ISR). |
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| Reporting annual emission estimates to these UK inventories is a statutory requirement for industrial operators of installations regulated under the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) regulations and Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR). The data from these inventory sources is also used to quality check data provided by companies directly to AEA. |
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| North Wyke Research compiles the inventory for agricultural emissions using agricultural statistics from Defra and the Devolved Administrations. |
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| The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) compiles estimates of emissions and removals from LULUCF using land-use data and information on forestry from the Forestry Commission (a non-departmental public body), Government Departments and from other sources. |
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| Both DECC and Defra also fund periodic research contracts to provide emission estimates for certain sources such as fluorinated gases and landfill methane and to provide estimates for previously unreported emission sources. |
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