Uses of CRF Data

The information supplied by Parties to the Secretariat in their CRF table submissions is the foundation for many of the tools used in the review process. After it has been screened for inconsistencies and errors have been corrected, the CRF data from all Parties is processed by the Secretariat to create a comprehensive inventory database. This database is then used by the Secretariat to generate a variety of reports and review tools, including Part I and Part II of the Synthesis and Assessment and a standard Key Category analysis for each Party using the Tier 1 method. (See above figure).

This CRF database is also used as the input to other tools, including the public access data on the UNFCCC website and the Locator tool. The Locator tool is a user friendly search engine that will be useful when you are trying to locate particular CRF data, especially for comparisons. We will discuss the Locator tool in more detail later in this section.

You should now have a general understanding of how the CRF is structured, what it looks like, and how CRF data are used. As a reviewer, though, your primary concern is how you can use the CRF tables submitted by Parties to further your work during the review.