File : D5.5
Author : AMR Petrescu (VUA)
Reliable quantification of the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, including that of their trends and uncertainties, is essential to monitoring the progress in mitigating anthropogenic emissions under the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. This study updates the two ESSD synthesis papers (deliverable D5.3) and the third reconciliation report (D5.4) and provides updated estimates for all anthropogenic and natural sources and sinks of CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions for the European Union and UK (EU27 + UK) for the last year of the VERIFY project (V2021) covering up to years 2019/2020, derived from a combination of state-of-the-art data sources.
Given the wide scope of the work and the variety of datasets involved, this study focuses on proper understanding and discussion of differences between various datasets, in particular with regards to the less-well characterized fluxes from managed ecosystems. The work integrates recent emission inventory data, process-based ecosystem model results, data-driven sector model results, and inverse modelling estimates, over the period 1990-2019/2020. Estimates are compared with European national GHG inventories (NGHGIs) reported under the UNFCCC in 2021 (including data up to year 2019), aiming to assess and understand the differences between approaches.
We present as well figures showing the differences between the different versions of main data sets used in D5.3, D5.4 and the current deliverable D5.5 (e.g., UNFCCC, FAOSTAT, bookkeeping models, TRENDY DGVMs, GCP and regional inversions ensembles). As uncertainties in NGHGIs, we used the standard deviation obtained by varying parameters of inventory calculations, reported by the Member States in 2021, following the IPCC (2006, 2019) guidelines.
Figure 1 : Five-year averages as: 2011-2015 and 2015-2019 total CH4 emission estimates (excl. LULUCF) for EU27+UK and five European regions (North, West, Central, South and East non-EU)
