Scientific aspects of the framework convention on climate change and national greenhouse gas inventories

Though the principles of the Earth's greenhouse effect have been known for well over a century, it is only recently that advances in climate research have indicated that significant and possibly costly climate change, due to growing emissions of greenhouse gases and their precursors by human activity, is a real possibility. Current estimates of the global human-related emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are presented, though many sources remain poorly known or understood. The compilation of national greenhouse inventories as required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is likely in the longer term to help improve such global estimates, as long as comparable methodologies are used. The development of the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories is described, emphasizing the strategies employed to gain wide international participation.