Canada Submits an Annual Greenhouse Gas Inventory to UNFCCC

This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard Canada Country Manager Diane Szoller

Best Organizational Source: Pollutant Inventories and Reporting Division of Environment and Climate Change Canada

Every year, the Pollutant Inventories and Reporting Division of Environment and Climate Change Canada prepares and submits a national greenhouse gas inventory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Inventory estimates are determined by methods and models developed in-house by engineering and scientific staff, as well as from published data, data developed by industry, or methods developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to comply with UNFCCC Reporting Guidelines requirements for national emission inventories. Reporting includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and nitrogen trifluoride emissions.

The most recent report is titled the National Inventory Report 1990-2-19: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada. It provides anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions by sources and removals by sinks and annual emissions estimates. It links this information to relevant indicators of the Canadian economic sectors of Energy; Industrial Processes and Product Use; Agriculture; Waste; and Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry. In 2019, the oil and gas sector and transport sector were the largest emitters in Canada. Overall, the report gives a clear picture of where we need to focus climate efforts.

With respect to gaps in the data, carbon dioxide emissions arising from the end-use combustion of exported fossil fuels from Canada are not accounted for. The report states emissions for some categories are not estimated or are included with other categories due to the following:

Categories do not occur in Canada
Data is unavailable at the category level
Methodological issues specific to national circumstances
Emission estimates are considered insignificant

Efforts are continuously being made to improve data sources or methodologies.

Data sources – For the purposes of analyzing economic trends and policies, the National Inventory allocates emissions to the economic sector from which the emissions originate under the following categories: Energy, Industrial Processes and Produce Use, Agriculture, Waste and Land Use, Land Use Change and Forests. A comprehensive breakdown is shown below.

Data source is https://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.506002/publication.html

PHOTO: Breakdown of Canada’s emissions by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sector (2019)