Sound emission inventories are the first step for designing effective clean air policies as they provide information about the main sources and the most acute air pollution problems in a country.

Under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution(Air Convention), UNECE has therefore been assisting countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia to develop better emission inventories with a view to facilitating their ratification and/or implementation of the Air Convention and its key protocols. Following a series of in-country workshops in several countries in the subregion in 2019, workshops this year are being held online as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new format of the workshop was piloted for Kazakh experts this week (21 December 2020). The workshop covered requirements and guidelines for reporting emissions under the Convention, as well as instructions on using templates. Experts analysed the previously submitted Informative Inventory Report (IIR) and the emissions data prepared for the 2020 reporting period.  Recommendations were also provided on methodologies and required data for development of gridded emissions, so that participants could prepare for the next stage of a hands-on training.

Practical work with national data sets will take place in a second part of the workshop that will be held in-country in 2021.

For more information on capacity-building under the UNECE Air Convention, please visit: https://unece.org/capacity-building-4