The initial check stage gives immediate feedback to Parties, in the form of a status report, on any completeness deficiencies so that they can attempt to correct them before the review process proceeds. It also gives immediate feedback to the COP on the progress of Parties in providing their submissions on time and complete for that year.

National inventories should be complete temporally, across gases, and across source and sink categories.

This stage is performed by the UNFCCC Secretariat, with an opportunity by each Party to comment on its own status report before it is published on the UNFCCC website.

Specifically, the Initial Check includes checks for the following:

• The submission is complete and information has been provided in the correct format in accordance with the reporting guidelines;
• All sources, sinks and gases included in the IPCC Guidelines and good practice guidance are reported;
• Any gaps are explained by use of notation keys, such as NE (not estimated) and NA (not applicable), in the CRF and whether there is frequent use of these notation keys;
• Methodologies are documented with notations in the CRF;
• Estimates for carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fossil fuel combustion are reported using the IPCC reference approach, in addition to estimates derived using national methods;
• Estimates for HFC, PFC, and SF₆ emissions are reported by individual chemical species;
• The Party has completed its NIR or CRF tables within six weeks of the due date (April 15th).

Click here and go to the status report column to see examples of status report.

Close