NATIONAL SYSTEM FOR THE ESTIMATION OF ANTHROPOGENIC GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY SOURCES AND REMOVALS

BY SOURCES AND REMOVALS BY SINKS

SUBSIDIARY LEGISLATION 643.04

NATIONAL SYSTEM FOR THE ESTIMATION

OF ANTHROPOGENIC GREENHOUSE GAS

EMISSIONS BY SOURCES AND REMOVALS

BY SINKS REGULATIONS

14th August, 2015

LEGAL NOTICE 259 of 2015.

(1) The title of these regulations is the National System for

the Estimation of Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Emissions by

Sources and Removals by Sinks Regulations.

(2) These regulations provide for the establishment of a

national system for the estimation and reporting of anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks, in

accordance with the requirements of international treaties to which

Malta is a Party, and pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 525/2013.

Criteria for the operation of a national greenhouse

gas inventory system.

1. The national greenhouse gas inventory system shall be operated to ensure

that the national greenhouse gas inventory is

(a) transparent: meaning that the assumptions and methodologies used for

an inventory should be clearly explained to facilitate replication and

assessment of the inventory by users of the reported information;

(b) consistent: means that an inventory should be internally consistent in all

its elements with inventories of other years. An inventory is consistent

if the same methodologies are used for the base and all subsequent years

and if consistent data sets are used to estimate emissions or removals

from sources or sinks;

(c) comparable: means that estimates of emissions and removals reported

by Malta in inventories should be comparable with estimates reported

by other Annex I Parties;

(d) complete: means that an inventory covers all sources and sinks, as well

as all gases, included in the IPCC Guidelines as well as other existing

relevant source and sink categories which are specific to Malta and,

therefore, may not be included in the IPCC Guidelines. Completeness

also means full geographic coverage of sources and sinks of an Annex I

Party;

(e) accurate: means that estimates should be accurate in the sense that they

are systematically neither over nor under true emissions or removals, as

far as can be judged, and that uncertainties are reduced as far as

practicable.

2. The national greenhouse gas inventory system shall be operated to ensure

the quality of the inventory through planning, preparation and management of

inventory activities. Inventory activities include collecting activity data, selecting

methods and emission factors appropriately, estimating anthropogenic greenhouse

gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks, implementing uncertainty

assessment and quality assurance/quality control activities, and carrying out

procedures for the verification of the inventory data at the national level.

3. The national greenhouse gas inventory system shall be operated to enable

compliance with commitments relating to the estimation of anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by sinks.

4. The national greenhouse gas inventory system shall be operated to enable

Malta to consistently estimate anthropogenic emissions by all sources and removals

by all sinks of all greenhouse gases, as covered by the relevant IPCC guidelines for

national greenhouse gas inventories and IPCC good practice guidance, in accordance

with relevant decisions of the COP and, or, the COP/MOP.

5. The national greenhouse gas inventory system shall ensure that sufficient

capacity is available for timely performance of the functions relevant to inventory

preparation and management.

6. The national greenhouse gas inventory systems shall ensure the competency

of persons involved in the inventory development process.

BY SOURCES AND REMOVALS BY SINKS

In these regulations and unless the context otherwise

requires

"Act" means the Climate Action Act;

"Commission" means the European Commission;

"COP" means the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC;

"COP/MOP" means the Conference of the Parties serving as the

meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol;

"Decision 19/CMP.1" means Decision 19/CMP.1, Guidelines for

national systems under Article 5, paragraph 1, of the Kyoto

Protocol;

"emissions" means the release of greenhouse gases and, or, their

precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of

time;

"good practice" means a set of procedures intended to ensure that

greenhouse gas inventories are accurate in the sense that they are

systematically neither over- nor underestimated as far as can be

judged, and that uncertainties are reduced as far as possible, and

may cover choice of estimation methods appropriate to national

circumstances, quality assurance and quality control at the national

level, quantification of uncertainties, and data archiving and

reporting;

"greenhouse gas" means any gaseous constituent of the

atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorbs and re-

emits infrared radiation;

"greenhouse gas inventory" means an accounting of greenhouse

gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol emitted to, or

removed from, the atmosphere over a period of time;

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"IPCC" means the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change;

"inventory agency" means such body or person as designated by

the Single National Entity in terms of regulation 5;

"key source category" means a source category that is prioritized

within the national inventory because its estimate has significant

influence on the country’s total inventory of greenhouse gases in

terms of absolute level of emissions, the trend of emissions, or

both;

"Kyoto Protocol" means the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC;

"Minister" means the Minister responsible for climate change

policy;

"national greenhouse gas inventory system" means a system of

institutional, legal and procedural arrangements that is established

a n d m a i n t a i n e d t o e n s u r e t h e t r a n s p a r e n c y, c o n s i s t e n c y,

comparability, completeness and accuracy of national greenhouse

gas inventories and for reporting and archiving inventory

information as defined in Decision 19/CMP.1;

"person" means any natural or legal person;

"quality assurance" or "QA" means a planned system of review

procedures conducted by personnel not directly involved in the

inventory compilation development process, to verify that data

quality objectives are met, ensure that the inventory represents the

best possible estimate of emissions and sinks given the current state

of scientific knowledge and data available, and support the

effectiveness of the QC programme;

"quality control" or "QC" means a system of routine technical

activities to measure and control the quality of the inventory as it is

being developed, and designed to provide routine and consistent

checks to ensure data integrity, correctness and completeness,

identify and address errors and omissions, and document and

archive inventory material and record all quality control activities;

"recalculation" means a procedure for re-estimating

anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by sources ad removals by

sinks of previously submitted inventories as a consequence of

changes in methodologies, changes in the manner in which

emission factors and activity data are obtained and used, or the

inclusion of new source and sink categories;

"Regulation (EU) No 525/2013" means Regulation (EU) No 525/

2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May

2013 on a mechanism for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas

emissions and for reporting other information at national and Union

level relevant to climate change and repealing Decision No 280/

2004/EC;

"single national entity" means the Minister responsible for

Climate Change, and such other body or person as the Minister may

prescribe and designate as the single national entity;

"sink" means any process, activity or mechanism which removes

BY SOURCES AND REMOVALS BY SINKS

a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas

from the atmosphere;

" s o u r c e " m e a n s a n y p r o c e s s o r a c t i v it y w hi c h r e l e a s e s a

greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas into

the atmosphere;

"UNFCCC" means the United Nations Framework Convention

on Climate Change.

Specific functions of the inventory agency relating

to inventory preparation and management.

Inventory preparation.

1. As part of inventory preparation, the inventory agency shall

(a) identify key source categories following the methods described in the

IPCC good practice guidance;

(b) prepare estimates in accordance with the methods described in the

relevant IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories, as

elaborated by the IPCC good practice guidance, and ensure that

appropriate methods are used to estimate emissions from key source

categories;

(c) collect sufficient activity data, process information and emission factors

as are necessary to support methods selected for estimating

anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by

sinks;

(d) make a quantitative estimate of inventory uncertainty for each source

category and for the inventory in total, following the IPCC good

practice guidance;

(e) ensure that any recalculations of previously submitted estimates of

anthropogenic GHG emissions by sources and removals by sinks are

prepared in accordance with the IPCC good practice guidance and

relevant decisions of the COP and, or, the COP/MOP, Regulation (EU)

No 525/2013 and relevant decisions and regulations adopted by the

Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 525/2013;

(f)

compile the national inventory in accordance with the UNFCCC, the

Kyoto Protocol, relevant decisions of the COP and, or, the COP/MOP,

Regulation (EU) No 525/2013 and relevant decisions and regulations

adopted by the Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 525/2013;

(g) elaborate an inventory QA/QC plan which describes specific QC

procedures to be implemented during the inventory development

process, and implement inventory QC procedures in accordance with its

QA/QC plan following the IPCC good practice guidance, and in

accordance with the quality objectives established by the Single

National Entity pursuant to regulation 4.

2. The inventory agency should also

(a) apply source-category-specific QC procedures for key source categories

and for those individual source categories in which significant

methodological and, or, data revisions have occurred, in accordance

with the IPCC good practice guidance;

(b) provide for a basic review of the inventory by personnel that have not

been involved in the inventory development, preferably an independent

third party, before the submission of the inventory, in accordance with

the planned QA procedures referred to in paragraph 1(g);

(c) provide for a more extensive review of the inventory for key source

categories, as well as source categories where significant changes in

methods or data have been made;

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(d) based on the reviews described in sub-paragraph (c) and periodic

internal evaluations of the inventory preparation process, re-evaluate

the inventory planning process in order to meet the established quality

objectives referred to in paragraph 1(g).

Inventory management

1. As part of inventory management, the inventory agency shall

(a) archive inventory information for each year in accordance with relevant

decisions of the COP and/or COP/MOP. This information shall include

all disaggregated emission factors, activity data, and documentation

about how these factors and data have been generated and aggregated

for the preparation of the inventory. This information shall also include

internal documentation on QA/QC procedures, external and internal

reviews, documentation on annual key sources and key source

identification and planned inventory improvements;

(b) provide access to all archived information used to prepare the inventory,

to reviews undertaken pursuant to the UNFCCC and Regulation (EU)

No 525/2013;

(c) respond to requests for clarifying inventory information resulting from

the different stages of the review process of the inventory information,

and information on the national system, in a timely manner in

accordance with the UNFCCC and Regulation (EU) No 525/2013.

(1) A national greenhouse gas inventory system shall be

established and maintained.

(2) The national greenhouse gas inventory system shall be

operated in accordance with

(a) the principles set out in Schedule 1;

(b) relevant decisions of the COP and, or, COP/MOP; and

(c) relevant decisions and regulations adopted by the

Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 525/

2013.

(1) The Single National Entity shall have overall

responsibility for the national greenhouse gas inventory system.

(2) The Single National Entity shall ensure that the national

greenhouse gas inventory system is operated in accordance with

(a) the criteria set out in Schedule 1;

(b) relevant decisions of the COP and, or, COP/MOP; and,

(c) relevant decisions and regulations adopted by the

Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 525/

2013. (3)

The Single National Entity shall

(a) define and allocate specific responsibilities in the

inventory preparation process, including those related

to choice of methods, data collection, processing and

archiving and quality assurance and quality control,

specifying the roles of, and cooperation between,

government agencies and other entities involved in the

preparation of the inventory, as well as the

institutional, legal and procedural arrangements made

to prepare the inventory;

(b) shall establish quality objectives for the national

greenhouse gas inventory system;

(c) establish processes for the independent review, official

consideration and approval of national greenhouse gas

inventory reports; and

(d) ensure the timely submission of national greenhouse

gas inventory reports in accordance with relevant

decisions of the COP and, or, the COP/MOP, and

Regulation (EU) No 525/2013.

BY SOURCES AND REMOVALS BY SINKS

(1) The Single National Entity shall by order in the gazette

nominate a person or body to be the competent Inventory Agency

to carry out the functions set out in Schedule 2 and to perform such

other functions as the Single National Entity may consider

appropriate in relation to the operation of these regulations.

(2) Such person or body shall be nominated for such a period as

the Single National Entity may determine and the Single National

Entity shall have the power at any time to prolong, renew or

terminate such nomination by order in the Gazette.

(3)

Such person or body shall ensure that it acts in accordance

with

(a) the principles set out in Schedule 1;

(b) relevant decisions of the COP and, or, COP/MOP; and

(c) relevant decisions and regulations adopted by the

Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) No 525/

2013. (4) The Inventory Agency shall, annually, and in accordance

with deadlines established by the COP and, or the COP/MOP and

deadlines set out in Regulation (EU) No 525/2013, prepare a

national greenhouse gas inventory report in accordance with

r e l e v a n t d e c i s i o n s o f t h e C O P a n d , o r, t h e C O P / M O P, a n d

Regulation (EU) No 525/2013.

(1) The Single National Entity and, or, the Inventory

A ge nc y m a y i d e n ti f y d a t a pr o vi d e r s , in c l u di ng , in t e r a li a,

government agencies, who shall provide, to the Single National

Entity and, or, the Inventory Agency, data and information

necessary for the preparation of the national greenhouse gas

inventory.

(2) The Single National Entity and, or, the Inventory Agency

may request any Department, Authority, Agency, Corporation or

any such body or persons to provide any data and information

necessary for the preparation of the Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

(3) The Single National Entity and, or, the Inventory Agency

upon identifying data providers in terms of sub-regulation (1) or

upon requesting any data or information from any such body or

person in terms of sub-regulation (2) shall determine the format and

deadlines for the provisions of such data and or information.

(4) Pursuant to sub-regulation (1), the Single National Entity

and, or, the Inventory Agency may establish arrangements with

such data providers to define the type of data and information to be

provided.

It shall be the duty of the Minister to, every year, and by

not later than two (2) months after the date of submission of the

national greenhouse gas inventory report relating to that year as

established pursuant to the UNFCCC, lay before Parliament the

report on national greenhouse gas emissions by sources and

removals by sinks.

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