Full Title: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2016
Author(s): United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Publisher(s): United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Publication Date: April 1, 2018
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
An emissions inventory that identifies and quantifies a country’s anthropogenic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases is essential for addressing climate change. This inventory adheres to both (1) a comprehensive and detailed set of methodologies for estimating sources and sinks of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and (2) a common and consistent format that enables Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to compare the relative contribution of different emission sources and greenhouse gases to climate change.
In 1992, the United States signed and ratified the UNFCCC. As stated in Article 2 of the UNFCCC, “The ultimate
objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to
achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas
concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt
naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to
proceed in a sustainable manner.”
Parties to the Convention, by ratifying, “shall develop, periodically update, publish and make available…national
inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by
the Montreal Protocol, using comparable methodologies…”3 The United States views this report as an opportunity
to fulfill these commitments.
This chapter summarizes the latest information on U.S. anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission trends from 1990
through 2016. To ensure that the U.S. emissions inventory is comparable to those of other UNFCCC Parties, the
estimates presented here were calculated using methodologies consistent with those recommended in the 2006
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (IPCC
2006).