Good Practice Guidance for Land Use,Land-Use Change and Forestry

This report on Good Practice Guidance for Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (GPG-LULUCF) is the response to the invitation by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to develop good practice guidance for land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). GPG-LULUCF provides supplementary methods and good practice guidance for estimating, measuring, monitoring and reporting on carbon stock changes and greenhouse gas emissions from LULUCF activities under Article 3, paragraphs 3 and 4, and Articles 6 and 12 of the Kyoto Protocol.

The GPG-LULUCF assists countries in producing inventories for the land use, land-use change and forestry sector that are neither over- nor underestimates so far as can be judged, and in which uncertainties are reduced as far as practicable. It supports the development of inventories that are transparent, documented, consistent over time, complete, comparable, assessed for uncertainties, subject to quality control and quality assurance, and efficient in the use of resources.

The GPG-LULUCF is consistent with the existing good practice guidance for the other sector and addresses:

• Choice of estimation method within the context of the IPCC Guidelines;
• Quality assurance and quality control procedures to provide cross-checks during the inventory compilation;
• Data and information to be documented, archived and reported to facilitate review and assessment of inventory estimates;
• Quantification of uncertainties at the source or sink category level and for the inventory as a whole, so that resources available can be directed toward reducing uncertainties over time, and the improvement can be tracked.

In addition, GPG-LULUCF provides guidance related to the specific features of the LULUCF sector on consistent representation of land areas, sampling for area estimates and for estimating emissions and removals, verification, and guidance on how to complement the Convention reporting for the LULUCF sector to meet the supplementary requirements under the Kyoto Protocol.

The development of good practice guidance for LULUCF sector is a step in the IPCCs on-going programme of inventory development and will also support future revisions of the IPCC Guidelines themselves.

This report was adopted/accepted by the IPCC Plenary at its 21st session held in Vienna, 3-7 November, 2003.