CLIMATE CHANGE AND GHGs INVENTORY IN SLOVAKIA Milan Lapin, Comenius University Bratislava, www.dmc.fmph.uniba.sk & Slovak National Climate Program Janka Szemesová, Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute, Bratislava, www.ghg-inventory.gov.sk

IntroductionThe Slovak Ministry of the Environment (www.enviro.gov.sk) is responsible for national environmental policy

including climate change and air protection issues. It has the responsibility to develop acts, and amendments to ex -isting legislation. Legislation proposals are commented by all ministries and other relevant bodies. Following the commenting process, proposed acts are negotiated in the Legislative Council of the Government, approved by the Government, and finally by the Parliament. The Ministry of Environment cooperates with other ministries, such as Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications, and the Ministry of Construction and Regional Development.

Slovakia, as a member state of the EU (the EU-15 commitment was adopted in the form of so-called burden sharing agreement) has committed itself to an 8% reduction of GHGs emissions compared to the base year 1990. According to the emission inventory updated in April 15, 2009, Slovakia has achieved a reduction of total anthro-pogenic emissions of GHGs, stated as CO2 equivalent, of approximately 36% compared the year 1990 without emissions from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF). Total GHG emissions in the Slovakia are stable or slightly increasing due to recovery of economic activities, increase in transport category and expected in-crease in actual emissions of F–gases (mainly HFCs and SF6) in spite of high annual increase of GDP in last years.

This achievement is the result of following several processes and factors:-  Higher share of services in the generation of the GDP.-  Higher share of gas fuels in the final consumption of energy resources.-  Restructuring of industries.-  Gradual decrease in energy demands in certain heavy energy demanding sectors (except for metallurgy).-  Impact of legislative measures influencing directly or indirectly the generation of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Czecho-Slovak National Climate Program (NCP) was established by the Ministry of Environment on Janu-ary 1st, 1991. Four main tasks of NCP were as follows: activities according to the World Climate Program recom-mendations, climate change monitoring and data elaboration, climate change impacts assessment in different socio-economic sectors, communicating Climate Change (i.e. preparing reports and information for ministries and general public, participation in conferences with papers on Climate Change issues and issuing papers and other publications on obtained results). As many as 23 subjects have participated directly in the Slovak NCP activities since 1993 (split of Czecho-Slovak NCP to Czech and Slovak NCP). Slovak NCP issued 12 monographs, participated in five Slovak National Communications on Climate Change (issued by the Ministry of Environment in 1995, 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010 (planed), approved by the Slovak Government) and took part in several scientific projects on issues influenced by Climate Change. Slovak NCP also co-organized at least one seminary or conference a year. Inventory and reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission was only a marginal topic of the NCP, these issues have been coordinated by the National Inventory System at the directly by the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute under legal responsibility of the Ministry of the Environment.

Climate changes, monitoring, trends and variability, climate change scenarios up to the year 2100, vulnerability to climate change assessments and adapting options for Slovakia are also included into the 4 th Slovak National Communication on Climate Change (SNCCC). These topics have been discussed also in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd SNCCC. The published assessments have been based mainly on the Slovak National Climate Program (SNCP) and corre -sponding research projects results. Full text is on: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/slknc4.pdf since Dec. 2005. The 5th SNCCC will contain more comprehensive results on all topics discussed in the previous SNCCCs, including evaluation of extreme weather events impact on different socio-economic sectors and the scenarios of extreme weather occurrence up to the time frame 2100, focusing on the following three elements: action and coop-eration in the area of vulnerability, impacts and adaptation. The submission of the 5th Slovak National Communica-tion on Climate Change shall be reported by 1st January 2010, including information under Article 7, paragraph 2, of the Kyoto Protocol (decisions 10/CP.13 and 8/CMP.3).

National circumstancesArticles 4 and 12 of the UNFCCC require that Parties to the UNFCCC develop, periodically update, publish, and

make available to the Conference of the Parties national inventories of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled under the Montreal Protocol.

The National Inventory System for the GHG emissions (www.ghg-inventory.gov.sk) has been established and officially announced by the Decision of Minister of the Environment of the Slovakia on 1st January 2007 in the offi-cial bulletin: Vestnik, Ministry of Environment, XV, 3, 2007, page 19 (http://www.enviro.gov.sk/ serv - lets/files/16715). In agreement with the paragraph 30(f) of the Annex to the decision 15/CMP.1 which gives defini-

tion of all qualitative parameters for the national inventory systems, description of the quality assurance and quality control plan according to the Article 5, paragraph 1 is also required.

Brand new and high level co-ordination body has been established on June 2008 according to the Resolution of the Slovak Government No 416/2008 from 18 June 2008. UN Secretary General Commission for Climate and En-ergy Issues is a competent body to define specific tasks and means necessary for further analyses to develop na -tional strategies and particular measures in tackling climate change, adaptation and support of renewable energy sources. Under this Commission there is also working a wide expert group responsible for preparing of all practical inputs and studies as required for further progress. In the next future, this new, two stage structures, will be the final responsible body to asses draft of annual inventory and to propose further steps to improve.

Supporting institutions founded by the Ministry of Environment play an important role. These include the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI) (www.shmu.sk), the Water Research Institute, and the Slovak Environ-mental Agency. Academic and research institutions (i.e. the Forestry Research Institute Zvolen, the Transportation Research Institute Zilina, the Slovak Agricultural University Nitra, the Slovak Technical University Bratislava, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics & Informatics, Bratislava, and the Slovak Academy of Science), non-governmen-tal organizations, and associations of interested groups (the Slovak Energy Agency, PROFING, EFRA Zvolen, SZCHKT, Detox, SPIRIT, Ecosys, veQ s.r.o.) are involved in the process of development and implementation of policy and measures aimed to mitigate climate change impacts.

Slovakia has been independent since January 1st, 1993, after splitting of the former Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. In April 1993 Slovakia acceded to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and subsequently to the World Trade Organization (WTO). In September 2000 Slovakia became the 30 th member of the OECD. In May 2004 Slovakia joined the European Union and on 1 January 2009 joined the Euro zone.

Transition from a centrally planned economy to a modern and market oriented type was difficult, connected with a significant economic recession accompanied with high unemployment rate (peaking at 19.2% in 2001), high in-flation, low incomes and significant changes in life standards, namely for specific groups and in specific regions outside the capital. Main recession was lasting from 1989 to 1993, when the GDP decreased by almost one quarter and then, after 1994, revival was observed, caused mostly by external demand. Extensive restructuring of economy including the technical innovation and privatization has been reflected not only in ongoing increase in the GDP growth rate but also in the higher share of services on the total GDP. Currently Slovakia is a high-income economy with one of the fastest growth in the EU and OECD. Growth acceleration from 2003 was and at present is still caused namely by the dynamics of automobile production, development of electrical engineering, cement and lime production and booming of construction sector. Growth of the GDP exceeded the overall productivity of the econ-omy (GDP increased by 3.4% in 2001, by 4.8% in 2002, by 4.7% in 2003, by 5.5% in 2004, by 6.5% in 2005, by 8.5% in 2006, by 10.4% in 2007 and by 6.4% in 2008, in 2009 a decrease by about 4% is expected).

A comparison of the GDP trend with the trend of aggregate emissions of greenhouse gasses shows that Slovakia is one of few countries where the trend of emissions is decoupled from the GDP increase. However, by international comparison, the generation of greenhouse gasses per capita still remains one of the highest in the Europe.

Without introduction of effective measures Slovakia will contribute to further increase of GHG emissions due to anticipated growth of the GDP and recovery of economic activities. Therefore, the investment strategy to tackle GHG emissions is one of the most important objectives.

In 2007, the energy sector reached a 2.7% share on the total GDP (according statistical information of Ministry of Finance). Energy intensity calculated on purchasing power is gradually decreasing, and was 1.9 times higher than the average recorded in the EU-15. The reason is a high proportion of heavy-energy-demanded industry contribut-ing to the GDP.

Occurred changes when final consumption of brown coal in 2006 was only 31% from this in 1990, light fuel oil consumption in 2006 decreased by 95% and heavy fuel oil by 70% compared to 1990. As an individual example: production of liquid steel in Slovakia increased from 1990 to 2005 by 27.7% while the coal consumption to produce energy decreased by 2.3%. Carbon intensity per metric ton of liquid steel has been improved by 5.2% during the same period. There is a lot of further technological and innovation steps made by individual operators to increase production intensity and to meet strict environmental requirements.

Agriculture, land use and forestry production shows a long lasting decrease in the share of GDP and employment. Share of GDP (in constant prices) was 4.7% in 2006. Over the last 10 years, only a slight decrease in acreage of utilized agriculture soil was recorded. The percentage of tilled areas reached 29% in 2006. The share of total acre-age of forest soil is approximately 39% in 2006.

Assessment of waste generation and handling pursuant to the new Waste catalogue was conducted for the first time in 2002 (the Act 223/2001 on Waste and implementing Regulation 284/2001 on the Waste Catalogue). This legislation transposed the European Waste Catalogue and has brought about fundamentals changes in waste balance and waste recording. The overall trend in waste management is towards an increase of material and energy recovery and a decrease in the disposal by incineration and land filling.

The household sector contributed to total energy consumption by 21% in 2006. More than 70% of total energy consumption is used for heating; approximately 20% to heating of water, and the rest about 10% is for other activi-ties such as lighting, cooking and use of electrical devises. The most important energy source is fossil fuels.

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Greenhouse gases emission inventoryThe total national emission in the current inventory year 2007 was estimated to be 46 950.67 Gg (46.95 mil. met-

ric tons) of CO2 equivalents without LULUCF sector and the net GHG emission was 43 754.23 Gg including the sinks from LULUCF. The Slovakia reported the national emission from energy sector based on sectoral approach data in 2007 to be 35 531.78 Gg CO2 equivalents including the transport emissions (6 719.36 Gg of CO2 equiva-lents), which represent decrease compare the base year by about 40% and also decrease compare to the previous year by 5%. The transport subsector increases against previous year 2006 by 13% and comparable to the base year by 33%. The GHGs inventory startet in 1993 and estimated complete emissions´ dataset from the base year 1990.

The total emissions from industrial processes sector in 2007 were estimated to be 5 825.32 Gg of CO2 equiva-lents. This represents an increase compared the base year by about 10%, but also decrease compared to previous year by about 2%. The numbers were changed because the recalculation of all time series in the nitric acid produc-tion. Intensive growing of the industry production causes the increasing of emissions.

The total emissions from sector of solvent use were estimated to be 79.95 Gg of CO2 equivalents this is decreas-ing comparable to previous year about 3%. The time series is now complete, the period 1990–1993 (before the SR formation) is not sufficiency covered by statistical data (lack of the national statistics data) and the constant expert judgment values for this period was used. The comparison with the base year is now possible, the increasing in more than 4 and half time.

The emissions from agriculture sector were estimated to be 3 224.56 Gg of CO2 equivalents It is a decrease com-pared the base year by about 54% and minor increase comparable to the previous year. The agriculture sector is the most decreasing sector compared to the base year 1990.

The total emissions and sinks from LULUCF sector were estimated to be –3 196.44 Gg of CO2 equivalents, the whole time series 1990–2007 were recalculated according the new methodology1 and those emissions and sinks were included into the submission. The estimation of emissions and sinks in the LULUCF sector are complicated to explain with the consistent time series.

The emissions from waste sector were estimated to be 2 269.07 Gg of CO2 equivalents. The decrease comparable to the previous inventory year is 5%, but compared to the base year the decrease was registered by more than 53%, because of including the waste incineration from base year and other waste treatment activities into energy sector (with energy use). The methodology has changed for wastewater treatment plants and the complete time series re-construction caused the decreasing in the waste sector, but this is expected trend. The reallocation of energy used waste incineration and recovery of landfill methane emissions were the driving force for the trend decreasing in the last submission.

A major share of aggregated emission covers the energy sector by about 75.7%, the industrial processes sector covers about 12.4%, the solvent use sector about 0.2%, the agriculture sector about 7.6% and the waste sector about 4.8%. The major share of aggregated emission covers CO2 emissions by about 81.2%, CH4 emissions by about 9.7%, N2O emissions by about 8.5% and F-gases emissions by about 0.4%. The share of gases and sectors didn’t change during last period.

Climate change and variability, vulnerability to climate change and adapting optionsThe Chapter 6 of SNCCC deals with the evaluation of research results on climate change and variability in Slo -

vakia; preparation of regional scenarios of climate change till 2100; estimates of vulnerability of selected social and economic sectors and proposal of adaptation measures to mitigate negative impacts and utilization of positive con-sequences of climate change in Slovakia. The data used come from the National Climate Program of the Slovakia, research projects results, the reports of the IPCC and other relevant sources. Analysis of all documents confirms that climate change and variability might result mostly in negative impacts. The territory of Slovakia is situated between maritime and continental climate with high internal heterogeneity and the changes in atmospheric circula -tion are bringing specific impacts on the climate. Further to the changes in precipitation and temperatures related to average conditions the particular increase of the frequency of extreme events (wind and rain storms, floods and droughts and heat waves etc.) is expected. The analysis also shows that there are several effective solutions to miti-gate potential damages caused by the climate change.

Totally nine General Circulation Models (GCMs, models of the atmospheric general circulation) from four world climate centers have been utilized in Slovakia. The most frequently used are models CCCM (Canadian GCMs CGCM2, CGCM3 and CGCM3.1) and GISS 1998 (US GCM). In Slovakia the IS92a, SRES A2 and B2/B1 emis -sion scenarios have been adopted in GCMs scenarios utilization as alternative options. The method of statistical downscaling is used primarily in regional modification of the GCMs outputs. This means that outputs from global (regional) climate models are statistically interpolated to individual selected points in Slovakia. The sets of meas -ured data are also applied. Recently, the dynamic methods of climatic scenarios downscaling have been adopted. Climate change scenarios are provided with regard to annual development of individual climate elements for certain

1 IPCC 2003 Good Practice Guidelines for LULUCF

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time horizons. The scenarios also include time scales of selected elements up to 2100. They are designed for several climate elements, such as air temperature, atmospheric precipitation, global solar radiation, and air humidity.

An illustration of some scenarios for monthly average air temperature and monthly precipitation totals are shown on web site: www.dmc.fmph.uniba.sk. The tables are designed for 50-year time horizons 2010 (1986-2035), 2030 (2006-2055) and 2075 (2051-2100) for both the territory of Central and whole Slovakia according to outputs of three GCMs models. While temperature scenarios could be used for the whole territory of the Slovakia, precipita-tion scenarios vary at individual stations by more than 10% (in winter – higher increase of precipitation in the North, in summer – greater decrease in the South). General increase of mean monthly air temperature by 1.8 – 4.8°C in the 2075 time frame is expected. Projected precipitation scenarios show only small changes in annual to-tals, but decrease in summer totals by about 10% (mainly in the South) and increase in winter totals by about 15% (mainly in the North) is expected. Downscaling of the GCMs daily time series and extreme events indicates serious change in occurrence of characteristic days with unusual weather events. The number of days with heavy precipita-tion and the highest precipitation totals may increase in summer by more than 40% at the end of the 21 st century. The use of the outputs of scenarios in models describing the development of the plants generally showed the trend for longer vegetation period as a possible increase of the impacts of weather extremes.

Assessment of vulnerability to climate change and projection of adapting options was prepared for socio-eco-nomic sectors: water management, water resources and hydrological cycle, agriculture and field ecosystems, for-estry economy and forest ecosystems (some other sectors have been contacted). Based on climate change scenarios and vulnerability assessment models there were selected serious negative impacts connected mainly with decrease of water availability during the growing period and due to the occurrence of harmful weather events (drought, heavy rains, floods, wild fires, heat waves, wind storms…). Introduction of new pests, invasive insects, diseases, and weeds will also play an important role in the management ecosystems. The most negative climate change impacts in Slovakia are connected with long drought periods and flash floods events.

RN = -0.0265x + 102.2 -3.39% trend in 128 yrs

dTN = 0.0127x - 0.8711.63°C trend in 128 yrs

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By: M.Lapin and SHMI data

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Figure 1. Temporal course of annual air temperature deviations (dTN) from the 1951-1980 average in Slovakia (based on 3 stations) and annual areal precipitation totals (RN) in % of the 1901-1990 average in Slovakia (based on 203 stations) in 1881-2008, linear trend included (by monthly SHMI data).

Continual monitoring of climatic changes has been realized at about 20 selected climatological and about 100 precipitation stations at the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI). Other elements of climate system (hydrologic cycle, ecosystems, phenology, forests…) are also included in the monitoring system, some observations are provided by other institutions than the SHMI.

The web site: www.dmc.fmph.uniba.sk contains also basic information on the climate change theory (Physics of the Earth’s climate system, modeling of climate, climate change scenarios and impacts…) as well as the informa-tion on climate change development in Slovakia since 1871. The Figure 1 is only a sample from many figures and tables updated frequently (monthly, seasonally, annually) on this web site.

References:

The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Slovak National Communication on Climate Change. Slovak Ministry of the Environment, Full text of the 4th one is on: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/slknc4.pdf since Dec. 2005. Bratislava (1995, 1997, 2001, 2005).

National GHG Inventory Report of the Slovak Republic, published on 15 April 2009, Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute Bra-tislava www.ghg-inventory.gov.sk.

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Statistical Yearbook 2008, Statistical Office, www.statistics.sk published on June 2009.

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