Peat-based emissions in Finland’s national greenhouse gas inventory

Peat-based emissions are reported under three different reporting sectors in Finland's national greenhouse gas inventory: Agriculture, Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) and Energy. Peat-based emissions comprise together around one third of the total reported net greenhouse gas emissions in Finland when also sinks and emissions from LULUCF sector are included. Most of the emissions come from the combustion of peat for energy but emissions from the agricultural use of peatlands and drained forest soils are also of importance. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) provides the basic guidelines for the inventory calculations. However, the use of national methods and emission factors is encouraged. Introducing new country-specific methods or emission factors in the inventory calculations requires transparent documentation of the input parameters and the process how emission factors, parameters and models are derived. Here we describe the national system for estimating peat-based emissions for the greenhouse gas inventory, and the methods that are used in deriving the emission estimates, as well as possibilities to use new national emission factors for improving the estimates.