Emissions boundaries

The UN system has an agreen common minimum boundary for its greenhouse gas inventory, which specifies activities, emission sources and greenhouse gases, as described below.

The October 2007 decision of the UN system Chief Executives Board (CEB) limits the boundary of the UN to facility operations and travel. The UN agencies, funds and programmes therefore account for greenhouse gas emissions from headquarters, regional and administrative centres and field offices. Emissions from activities that are funded both through the regular and extra-budgetary sources are included in the UN’s boundary.

Among others, the following are not included in the UN minimum agreed boundary:

• Emissions from staff commuting to work;
• Emissions from projects implemented by external entities or from grants to other institutions;
• Emissions from electricity losses, courier, mail, printing and shipping;
• Embodied carbon in for instance food, beverages, paper and computers; and
• Emissions from construction.

Emission sources

The greenhouse gas inventory of UN system organizations includes, as a minimum, the following emission sources:

• Mobile fuel combustion, such as emissions from official air, rail or road travel
• Stationary fuel combustion, such as energy consumption in buildings for electricity, heating, air conditioning, hot water and cooking etc 
• Fugitive emissions, such as leakage of greenhouse gases from refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment

If for some reason a UN organization is not able to include the above in their greenhouse gas inventory, the omission is documented and an explanation provided in the inventory management plan.

Greenhouse gas coverage

The greenhouse gas Protocol requires reporting of the six greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol, namely CO2, CH4, N2O, HFC, PFC and SF6. There are no emissions of SF6 resulting from UN activities. The methodology requires emissions to be reported seperately for each greenhouse gas as well as aggregated as carbon-dioxide equivalent. There are several areas where it is difficult to report on all greenhouse gases. As indicated above, in 2008, the UN’s methodology does not take into account the non-CO2 effects of aviation, although efforts were underway to develop appropriate metrics and approaches to resolve this issue. Similarly, the default national emission factors that were available for public transport and electricity production for 2008 did not include gases other than CO2.

The UN’s methodology allows the use of proxies to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from 'small' offices, which it has defined as offices with fewer than five staff members. If such offices were excluded altogether from the inventory, the data gap should have been reported with an indication of plans on how to account for these small offices in the future.

To assess inventory completeness, organizations are asked to identify and report the data gaps in coverage of emissions under the minimum agreed boundary. Whenever data is not readily available, organizations have the option of estimating greenhouse gas emissions based on clearly defined assumptions and proxies (kWh per square metre of office floor space). Such proxies can be derived from real data collected from similar buildings in the region and are discussed in the individual agencies inventory management plans.

Montreal Protocol Gases
 

As of 2010, the use of  Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) such as R-11 and R-12 and Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) such as R-22 and R-123, shall not be reported in the UN GHG inventory. These substances are not covered by the Kyoto Protocol and their control comes under the Montreal Protocol and are banned; as such they are not part of a GHG inventory.

Emissions from sources outside the UN minimum agreed boundary

UN system organizations are allowed the flexibility to report on an optional basis on emissions from sources that lie outside the UN minimum agreed boundary, provided an explanation is provided in the inventory management plan. These could include, for example, emissions from commuting, waste and paper use. If organizations chose to do so, emissions from these source categories should also be reported in subsequent years for the purpose of time series comparison.

UN greenhouse gas inventory database and reports

According to the system in place in 2008, UN system organizations provided their greenhouse gas data in several standardized calculators (the UN Greenhouse Gas Calculator, the UN Interface to the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator, and a spreadsheet for reported data using other methods of compiling the inventory). To accommodate the UN system’s specific greenhouse gas reporting needs, DFS/ICTD developed and designed a customized 'data-mining tool' to extract data from the workbooks and store all the information in a common greenhouse gas database. DFS/ICTD also made available a web portal where registered users can generate customized greenhouse gas reports directly from the internet.

The results of this process can be seen here.