As a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Austria is required to produce and regularly update National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. To date, National Greenhouse Gas Inventories have been produced for the years 1990 to 1999. By taking decision 3/CP.5 (see document FCCC/CP/1999/6/Add. 1) the Conference of the Parties (COP) has undertaken to implement the UNFCCC guidelines on reporting and reviewing (FCCC/CP/1999/7). According to this decision Parties shall submit a National Inventory Report (NIR) containing detailed and complete information on their inventories, in order to ensure the transparency of the inventory (See paragraph 32 of FCCC/CP/1999/7). This is the first time that Austria also provides a National Inventory Report (NIR). Part I includes inventory results addressing in addition to emission figures (chapter 1) also key source categories (chapter 2), changes with respect to previous submissions (chapter 3) and uncertainties (estimated in quantitative terms; chapter 4). Part II describes the National Inventory System Austria (NISA; chapter 1) that helps to fulfil reporting requirements relating to emissions of air pollutants with respect to other legal obligations (e.g. UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution). The quality management system is described in chapter 2 of Part II and the routes along which the emissions of the IPCC categories have been estimated are described in some detail in chapter 3. Similar to other Member States of the European Union the calculations are made for so-called SNAP-categories, which are usually not identical with the IPCC categories. The goal of chapter 3 is to make the transformation from SNAP into IPCC categories transparent. Although some effort has already been made to reduce the uncertainty and to close gaps there is still room for further improvements which are also addressed in chapter 3. Abbrevations and references used are also included as well as the emissions for the year 1999 as included in the tables of the common reporting format. It is the intention of this report to better understand the calculation of the Austrian GHG emission data. Those who want to know more details will have to consult the background literature citied in this document. The preparation and review of Austria's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory as well as the preparation of the NIR is the responsibility of the Department of Emissions/Climate Protection/Noise Abatement of the Federal Environment Agency. The project ieaders have been: Klaus Radunsky and Manfred Ritter. Specific responsibilities for the NIR 2001 have been as follows: Part I Chapter 1: Marion Gangl; Part I Chapter 2: Elisabeth Waitz; Part I Chapter 3: Stephan Poupa; Part I Chapter 4: Judith Brunner; Part II Chapter 1: Marion Gangl; Part II Chapter 2: Judith Brunner; Part II Chapter 3 general: Marion Gangl; IPCC category 1: Stephan Poupa, Günther Lichtblau, Manfred Ritter; IPCC category 2: Brigitte Bichler; IPCC category 3: Stephan Poupa; IPCC category 4: Elisabeth Waitz; IPCC category 5: Peter Weiss; IPCC category 6: Ilona Szednyj. The Austrian Federal Environment Agency expresses its thanks and appreciation to the project Ieaders for their contributions and cooperative effort in producing a national methodology and emission inventory of high quality. Contributors to the development of methodologies have been acknowledged in the respective sections of the NIR (Part II, chapter 3).
