How to improve the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions?

In the Netherlands a program is initiated to improve the national greenhouse gas inventory. This is required as part of the activities to build a National System according to article 5.1 of the Kyoto Protocol and to fulfill any international reporting requirements under the UNFCCC and the EU monitoring mechanism. One of the objectives of the program is to reduce the uncertainties in the national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory. Special attention is being paid to non-CO2 gases. Improving the monitoring of non-CO2 GHG emissions will be a basis for the implementation of emission reduction measures in the Netherlands. In close cooperation with the involved sectors and institutes, monitoring protocols are being developed. These will document the process of data gathering, processing and reporting and will contribute to improving the data and the data flows. In cooperation with the different sectors in the economy improved inventories will be made and uncertainties will be reduced. For the fluorinated gases several expert groups have been set up to improve the emission factors (based on measurements) in cooperation with the industry. For the other gases and sectors desk studies are carried out to improve the emission estimates.