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Clima East experts assist Ukraine in calculating its GHG emissions from road transportation

Clima East experts presented recommendations on the improvement of the national reporting of Ukraine on GHG emissions from the road transport sector. The recommendations were developed by leading experts as part of the Clima East Expert Facility assignment “Capacity building of the national GHG inventory system in terms of the development of methodological recommendations for determining national GHG emission factors from the use of motor fuels in the transport sector” (CEEF-041-UA), which was conducted upon the request of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine. The main outcomes of the assignment were presented at the final workshop, which took place on 30 March 2017 at the Aarhus Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.

As an Annex 1 Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Ukraine is required to submit annually a national Greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory report to the UNFCCC Secretariat. Road transport is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in Ukraine and the sector is designated as a key category in Ukraine’s national inventory. Ukraine is therefore required to use robust fuel consumption data for road transport in conjunction with carbon factors representative of fuels used in Ukraine from 1990 to the present year.

The assignment strengthens Ukraine’s capacity to develop robust GHG inventories for the road transport sector through a number of recommendations of methods for improving the national statistics on relevant road transport activities and fuel consumption and the carbon emission factors used to derive the GHG inventory.

The main focus of the assignment was on the carbon content of the road transport fuels used in Ukraine and how factors specific to fuels on the market in Ukraine for all years in the period of 1990-2015 could be estimated and, in future, measured. 

In considering the carbon factors, the experts reviewed the standards, composition and properties of transport fuels in Ukraine and compared with the rest of Europe. They used a scientifically-based method and expert judgement on the fuel market in Ukraine to make ‘first approach’ estimates of the carbon content and net calorific value of fuels suitable as country-specific carbon factors for Ukraine’s GHG inventory. However, in order to determine actual country-specific factors a series of measurements will need to be conducted in the future, for which the experts made recommendations on a fuel sampling and chemical analysis strategy.

The GHG inventory for road transport in Ukraine can only be as good as the statistical data on fuel consumption allocated to the road transport sector. The experts analysed the current regulatory setup for obtaining fuel consumption data in Ukraine and the practices for processing the data for the road transport GHG inventory, and developed a number of recommendations concerning improvements to collection of fuel consumption data.

The final workshop was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the National GHG Inventory Center, the State Statistics Service, CSOs, experts and academia. 

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