JRC warns of member state reporting challenges

A new report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) – the European Commission’s in-house science service – has argued that EU member states will face some challenges in meeting the new reporting and accounting requirements for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals from the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector, both under the Kyoto Protocol and under recent EU legislation.

The latest rules (2013-2020) of the Kyoto Protocol require accounting of all forest activities. The European Commission has also proposed legislation towards future inclusion of the sector.

The report authors additionally suggest that the JRC’s European Forest Fire Information System could be used for verification of the estimates of biomass burning included in LULUCF GHG inventories, and that a well-known soil carbon model (Yasso) could be used for reporting carbon stock changes in forest mineral soil.

Finally, tools have been developed by the JRC to support member states in reporting LULUCF in line with guidance from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including a model for estimating carbon stock changes in living biomass of perennial woody biomass crops and maps for each member state representing their climate zone, soil type and global ecological zones for the purpose of using the IPCC default factors.

In 2011-2013, the JRC carried out an assessment of the state of preparedness of EU member states in complying with the new LULUCF requirements. The assessment identified general recommendations and priority actions to help member states improve their national LULUCF monitoring, reporting and verification and the comparability and consistency of their estimates. Furthermore, the JRC provided ad hoc support to seven member states (Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Romania) in order to support their efforts for improvement in these areas.