GLOSSARY

ABARE

• The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics is a major source of activity data for the energy sector.

ABS

• The Australian Bureau of Statistics is a major source of data for the agricultural sector.

Accounting Framework

• The NGGI can be compiled according to UNFCCC or Kyoto Protocol accounting provisions.
  
  The principal source of difference between the two accounting frameworks is the treatment of emissions sources and sinks from the land use, land use change and forestry sector. UNFCCC provisions are underpinned by a comprehensive approach to emissions accounting and require the inclusion of all sources and sinks where there is adequate data while Kyoto provisions require a more limited set of sources and sinks from land use change and forestry activities (i.e afforestation, reforestation and deforestation).

Accounting Quantity

• The accounting quantity for the Kyoto Protocol land use, land use change and forestry activities represents the addition to or subtraction from a Party's assigned amount for a given year of the commitment period. A net removal will be added to the assigned amount while a net source will be subtracted from the assigned amount.
  
  For the afforestation/reforestation activities the accounting quantity must take into consideration the harvested forest sub-rule of the Kyoto Protocol (paragraph 4 of the annex to decision 16/CMP.1). Under this accounting rule "debits resulting from harvesting during the first commitment period following afforestation and reforestation since 1990 shall not be greater than credits accounted for on that unit of land". In other words, whenever emissions on harvested land units are greater than the removals on those land units, a net balance of zero is assumed for those units of land.

Activity

• A process that generates greenhouse gas emissions or uptake. In some sectors it refers to the level of energy consumption, production or manufacture for a given process or category or animal numbers.

Afforestation

• Afforestation is the direct human-induced conversion of land that has not been forested land for a period of at least 50 years to forested land through planting, seeding and/or human-induced promotion of natural seed sources. Under the Kyoto Protocol afforestation is limited to afforestation activities occurring on those lands that did not contain forest on 31 December 1989.

AGEIS

• The Australian Greenhouse Emissions Information System centralises the DCC's emissions estimation, emissions data management and reporting systems. AGEIS is being used to compile National and State and Territory inventories. The interactive web interface provides enhanced accessibility and transparency to Australia's greenhouse emissions data.

ANZSIC

• Australia and New Zealand Standard Industry Code. Industry classification system defined by ABS. See also Australian and New Zealand Industry Classification (ANZSIC).

Activity Table

• Tables which present activity data (i.e quanitity of fule consumed, animal numbers etc) used to derive emissions reported in the CRF tables.

Australia's National Greenhouse Accounts

• The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency publishes a suite of reports that, together, constitute the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts. The Accounts include:
  • The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory , reported on a Kyoto accounting basis and according to IPCC sectors;
  • a summary of State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories, reported as per the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory;
  • the National Inventory by Economic Sector , comprising emission estimates by economic sector rather than by IPCC sectors; and
  • the National Inventory Report , prepared under the reporting provisions applicable to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Australian and New Zealand Industry Classification (ANZSIC)

• Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) is derived from international classifications (ISIC, International Standard Industrial Classifications) and provides a framework for organising data about businesses - by enabling grouping of business units carrying out similar productive activities. The ANZSIC was developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in collaboration with Statistics New Zealand.

Base Year

• The base year emissions for Australia (547.7 Mt CO2-e) are the 1990 emissions for the energy, industrial processes, agriculture and waste sectors (Annex A sectors) and land use change (or forest conversion) as submitted to the UNFCCC in Australia's Initial Report in October 2008.

Confidentiality

• Data that is considered to be commercially sensitive is reported as "C" in the CRF tables. Confidential emissions are reported as an aggregated CO₂ equivalent value.

Common Reporting Format (CRF) Table

• The common reporting format tables form part of the National Inventory Report. The CRF tables are a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reporting template for countries to report their greenhouse gas emissions by sector, gas, trends and recalculated data in an electronic format. For each inventory year the CRF tables are compiled for the current inventory year and re-compiled for each year back to 1990.

DCCEE

• The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Deforestation

• Deforestation is the direct human-induced conversion of forested land to non-forested land. Under the Kyoto Protocol deforestation is limited to deforestation activities occurring on land that was forest on 1 January 1990.

Emission Type

• The release of a particular gas to the atmosphere as a result of a certain activity. Emissions can be one of the following four types:
  • Generated - the gross result of a process or activity;
  • Recovered - the diversion of emissions for use in a secondary process, such as power generation;
  • Sinks - the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere;
  • Net emissions - remaining gas released to the atmosphere after generation, recovery and sinks are taken into account.
• The most common data in the AGEIS are net estimates of emissions. The default setting for the system is to retrieve net emissions. If you select 'all' you retrieve estimates for all four types of emissions, although note that the system will take longer to complete this task.

Emission Factors

• The quantity of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of some specified activity.

Fugitive Emissions

• Release of emissions that typically result from leaks, including those from pump seals, pipe flanges and valve stems. Fugitive emissions also include methane emitted from coal mine seams. During petroleum storage tank filling, venting loss of vapour is a fugitive emission.

Gas

• The most common greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexaflouride. Emissions from these gases are reported under the Kyoto Protocol, and aggregated into carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-e) using factors called global warming potentials (GWPs). The default setting for the system is to report emissions of the six main classes of gases aggregated into a single CO₂-e estimate for each sector. Emissions of other, indirect gases, which cannot be aggregated because they do not have GWPs applied to them, are also reported individually under the UNFCCC inventory. These gases include nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, Non-Methane Volatile Organic Compounds (NMVOCs) and sulphur dioxide.

Global Warming Potential

• Represents the relative warming effect of a unit mass of a greenhouse gas compared with the same mass of CO2 over a specific period. Multiplying the actual amount of gas emitted by the GWP gives the CO₂-equivalent emissions. By international agreement, the GWPs used for this inventory are those identified by the IPCC in the Second Assessment Report in 1996 (see the notes of the national inventory report).

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• Established in 1988, the purpose of the IPCC is to assess information in the scientific literature related to all significant components of the issue of climate change. The official advisory body to governments on the state of science of climate change.

Inventory Year

• The year in which emissions occur.

Initial Assigned Amount

• The initial assigned amount represents Australia's emissions target for the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (before adjustments are made for purchases of net credits from international sources). The initial assigned amount is calculated as 108% of the base year emissions and is established as 591.5 Mt CO2-e a year for each year of the first commitment period 2008-2012.

Key Source Category

• A key source category has a significant influence on a country's total inventory of direct greenhouse gases in terms of absolute level of emissions, the trend in emissions, or both. Tier 1 key source analysis identifies sources that contribute to 95% of the total emissions or 95% of the trend of the inventory in absolute terms.

Kyoto Protocol

• The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty designed to limit global greenhouse gas emissions. Many parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including Australia, have signed the Protocol since negotiations were concluded at the third session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 3).
  
  The Kyoto framework has unique accounting provisions for the estimation of a country's greenhouse gas emissions, providing for the inclusion of specific sources and sinks from the land use, land use change and forestry sector. More information on the Kyoto Protocol

Methodology

• The methodology used for the estimation of Australia's national greenhouse gas inventory is documented in the National Inventory Report.

National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGGI)

• The NGGI consists of a range of outputs including National Inventory Report, Common Reporting Format Tables, Activity Tables and Emission Data.

Reforestation

• Reforestation is the direct human-induced conversion of non-forested land to forested land through planting, seeding and/or human-induced promotion of natural seed sources, on land that was forested but that has been converted to non-forested land. Under the Kyoto Protocol reforestation is limited to reforestation activities occurring on those lands that did not contain forest on 31 December 1989.

Scope 1 Emissions

• Direct greenhouse gas emissions

Scope 2 Emissions

• Indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the generation of purchased electricity. Purchased electricity is defined as electricity that is purchased or otherwise brought into the organisational boundary of the entity. Emissions from electricity generation consumed within the electricity, gas and water sector are included for completeness although this electricity use includes own use of generators and does not necessarily meet the definition of scope 2 emissions. The sum of scope 2 emissions is equal to the direct (scope 1) emissions from electricity generation (IPCC Source Category 1.A.1.a).

Sector

• The Inventory is divided into 6 IPCC defined sectors based on particular emissions processes:
  • Energy (IPCC sector 1),
  • Industrial Processes (sector 2),
  • Solvent and Other Product Use (sector 3),
  • Agriculture (sector 4),
  • Land Use, Land User Change and Forestry (sector 5) and
  • Waste (sector 6).
• Note that for any particular industry, emissions may be generated through more than one emissions process. For example, for the aluminium sector process emissions from the production of aluminium are accounted for in the Industrial Processes sector while the fuel combusted for energy in the production process is accounted for in the Energy sector. Similarly, for the agricultural industry, emissions from fuel combustion are reported under 'energy', while emissions from agricultural processes (for example enteric fermentation) are recorded under 'agriculture'.

Source

• Any process or activity that releases a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

Submission Year

• The year in which the DCC submits its national inventory report and is always two years later than the current inventory year. The submission comprises a complete time-series of inventory years from the baseline year (1990).

Tier

• The IPCC methods for estimating emissions and removals are divided into 'Tiers' encompassing different levels of activity and technology detail. Tier 1 methods are generally straightforward (activity multiplied by default emissions factor) and require less data and expertise than the most complicated Tier 3 methods. Tier 2 and 3 methods have higher levels of complexity and require more detailed country-specific information on things such as technology type or livestock characteristics. The concept of Tiers is also used to describe different levels of key source analysis, uncertainty analysis, and quality assurance and quality control activities.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

• An International treaty that commits signatory countries to stabilise anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to levels that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system. The UNFCCC also requires signatories to develop and update national inventories of anthropogenic emissions of all greenhouse gases not otherwise controlled by the Montreal Protocol.