Accounting Issues of Disclosing Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) in Sri Lanka

Accounting Issues of Disclosing Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is open the mind set of community and community related authorities to understand the Global protocol for Gas Emission inventories (GPC). This paper is based on the reporting practices issued by the Climate Data projects in UNDP. There are few issues are addressing in this paper, especially lack of awareness and lack of training among the communities. Further, issues of disclosing and defining of GPC reporting practices also discussed. Qualitative discussion with stakeholders reveals that still Sri Lankan community; Institutions are infant stage of reporting and disclosing the GPC.

Key Words: Global Protocol for community-Scale Greenhouse Gas, Carbon Accounting, Greenhouse Gas emission inventories

Introduction
The objective of this paper is to report global protocol for community scale greenhouse gas emission to the public. First part of this paper reports as it is CDP guide line and mechanism. Second part is some issues of understanding and disclosing GPC.Cities are the global centers of communication, commerce and culture;they are also a significant, and growing, source of energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A city’s ability to take effective action on mitigating climate change, and monitor progress, depends on having access to good quality data on GHG emissions. Planning for climate action begins with developing a GHG inventory. An inventory enables cities to understand the emissions contribution of deferent activities in the community.

Inventory methods that cities have used to date vary significantly. This inconsistency makes comparisons between cities difficult, raises questions around data quality, and limits the ability to aggregate local, subnational, and national government GHG emissions data. To allow for more credible and meaningful reporting, greater consistency in GHG accounting is r3equire,. The Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC)responds to this challenge and offers a robust and clear framework that bids on existing methodologies for calculating and reporting city-wide GHG emissions.

The GPC requires cities to measure and disclose a comprehensive inventory of GHC emissions and to total these emissions using two distinct but complementary approaches. One captures emissions from both production and consumption activities taking place within the city boundary, including some emissions released outside the city boundary. The other categorizes all emissions into “scopes” depending on where they physically occur. Separate accuonting of emissions physically released within the city boundary should be used for aggregation of multiple city inventories in order to avoid double counting.

The GPC is divided into three main parts

• Part I introduces the GPC reporting and accounting principles, sets out how to define the inventory boundary specifies reporting requirements and offers a sample reporting template
• Part II provides overarching and sector specific accounting and reporting guidance for sourcing data and calculating emissions, including calculation methods and equations
• Part III shows how inventories can be used to set mitigation goals and track performance over time and shows how cities can manage inventory quality

Note, the term “city” is used throughout this document to refer to any geographically dissemble subnational entity, such as a community, town, city, or province, and covers all levels of subnational jurisdiction as well as local government as legal entities of public administration.

Defining an inventory boundary and emission sources

To use the GPC, cities must first define an inventory boundary. This identifies the geographic area, time span, gases, and emission sources, covered by a GHG inventory. Any geographic boundary may be used for the HGH inventory. Depending on the purpose of the inventory, the boundary can align with the administrative boundary of a local government, a ward or borough within a city, a combination of administrative divisions, a metropolitan area, or another geographically identifiable entity, The GPC is designed to account for GHG emissions in a single reporting year and coves the seven gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol (section3.0 in the report.)

GHG emissions from city activities shall be classified into six main sectors:

·         Stationary energy

·         Transportation

·         Waste

·         Industrial processes and product use (IPPU)

·         Agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU)

·         Any other emissions occurring outside the geographic boundary as a result of city activities, These emissions are not covered in this version of the GPD but may be reported separately

Table 1 Sectors and sub-sectors of city GHG emissions

sectors and sub- sectors

STATIONARY ENERGY

Residential buildings

Commercial and institutional buildings and facilities

Manufacturing industries and construction

energy industries

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing activities

Non – specified sources

Fugitive emissions from mining, processing, storage, and transportation of coal

Fugitive emissions from oil and natural gas systems

TRANSPORTATION

On –road

Railways

Waterborne navigation

Aviation

Off – road WASTE

Solid waste disposal

Biological treatment of waste

Incineration and open burning

Wastewater treatment and discharge

INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES AND PRODUCT USE (IPPU)

Industrial processes

Product use

AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND OTHER LAND USE (AFOLU)

Livestock

Land

Other agriculture

OTHER SCOPE 3

Categorizing emissions

Activities taking place within a city can generate GHG emissions that occur inside the city boundary as well as outside the city boundary. To distinguish among them, the GPC groups emission into three categories based on where they occur: scope 1 or scope2 or scope 3 emissions. Definitions are provided in Table 2, based on an adapted application of the scopes framework used in the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard.

The scopes framework helps to differentiate emissions occurring physically within the city (scope 1), from those occurring outside the city (scope3) and from the use of electricity, steam, and or heating/cooling supplied by grids which may or may also be termed “territorial” emissions because they occur discretely within the territory defined by the geographic boundary. Figure 1 illustrates

Figure 1 Sources and boundaries of city GHG emissions

Table 2 Scopes definitions for city inventories

Scope	Definition
Scope 1	GHG emissions from sources located within the city boundary
Scope2	GHG emissions occurring as a consequence of the use of grid – supplied electricity, heat, steam and / or cooling within the city boundary
Scope 3	All other GHG emissions that occur outside the city boundary as a result of activities taking places within the city boundary

Which emission source occurs solely within the geographic boundary established for the inventory, which occurs outside the geographic boundary, and which may occur across the geographic boundary?

Aggregating city inventories

The GPC has been designed to allow city inventories to be aggregated at subnational and national levels in order to:

·         Improve the data quality of a national inventory, particularly where major cities’ inventories are reported:

·         Measure the contribution of city mitigation actions to regional or national GHG emission reduction targets:

·         And identify innovative trans boundary and cross-sartorial strategies for GHG mitigation.

Reporting requirements

The GPC requires cities to report their emissions by gas, scope, sector and subsector, and to add to add up emissions using two distinct but complementary approaches:

·         Scopes framework: This totals all emissions by scope 1, 2 and 3 Scope 1 (or territorial emissions) allows for the separate accounting of all GHG emissions produced within the geographic boundary of the city, consistent with national-level GHC reporting.

·         City-induce framework: This totals GHG emissions attributable to activities taking place within the geographic boundary of the city. It covers selected scope 1, 2 and 3 emission sources representing the key emitting sources occurring in almost all cities, and for which standardized methods are generally available.

The GPC sets out reporting requirements and explains how to add up emission totals. Cities may also report emissions based on relevant local or program-specific requirements in addition to the requirements of the GPC. GHG inventories should be updated on a regular basis using the most recent date available. The GPC recommends that cities update their inventory on an annual basis, as it provides frequent and timely progress on overall GHG emissions.

Table 3 summarizes the emissions sources and scopes covered by the GPC for both city-level and territorial reporting. Cities should aim to cover all emissions for which reliable data are available, To accommodate limitations in data availability and differences in emission sources between cities, the GPC requires the use of notation keys, as recommended in IPCC Guidelines, and an accompanying explanation to justify exclusion or partial accenting of HGC emission source categories.

The city-induced framework gives cities the option of selecting between two reporting levels: BASIC or BASIC+ The BASIC level covers scope 1 and scope 2 emissions from stationary energy and transportation, as well as scope 1 and scope 3 emissions from waste. BASIC + involves more challenging data collection and calculation processes, and additionally includes emissions from IPPU and AFOLU and transboundary transportation. Therefore, where these sources are significant and relevant for a city, the city should aim to report according to BASIC+ The sources covered in BASIC + also align with sources required for national reporting in IPCC guidelines.

Tick marks in Table 3 indicate which emissions sources are covered by the GPC, and cells are colored to indicate their inclusion in city-level BASIC or BASIC+ totals and the territorial total. rows written in italics represent sub-sector emissions required for territorial emission totals but not BASIC/BASIC+ Gray cells in the scope 2 column indicate emissions sources that do not have applicable GHG emissions in that scope category. Emission sources corresponding to the blank boxes in the scope 3 column are not required for reporting, but may be identified and disclosed separately under other scope 3

The GPC provides a sample reporting template that covers all reporting requirements. Cities may report GHG emissions in a variety of additional formats depending on purpose and audience, and may also disaggregate emissions by fuel type, municipal operations within each sector or sub-sector, etc.

Calculating GHC emissions

Part II of the GPC provides overarching and sector-specific reporting guidance for sourcing data and calculating emissions. Cities should select the most  appropriate methodologies based on the purpose of their inventory, availability of data, and consistency with their country’s national inventory and/or other measurement and reporting  programs in which they participate. The GPC does not require specific methodologies to be used to produce emissions data: rather it specifies the principles and rules for compiling an city-wide GHG emissions inventory. Where relevant, the GPC recommends using methodologies aligned with the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.

For most emission sources, cities will need to estimate GHG emissions by multiplying activity data by an emission factor associated with the activity being measured. Activity data is a quantitative measure of a level of activity that results in GHG emissions taking place during a given period of time (e.g, volume of gas used, kilometers driven, tones of waste sent to landfill, etc.). an emission factor is a measure of the mass of GHG emissions relative to a unit of activity. For example, estimating co2 emissions from the use of electricity involves multiplying data on kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity used by the emission factor (KgCO2/KwH) of electricity used by the emission factor (kgCO2/kWh) for electricity, which will depend on the technology and type of fuel used to generate the electricity.  GHG emissions data shall be reported as metrictonnes of each GHG as well as CO2 equivalents (CO2e).