BRs, BURs, NCs

find out what all these abbreviations & acronyms mean

Countries are requested to submit reports on progress towards the Paris Agreement goals. The reporting requirements for developed countries are that they must provide information on mitigation, adaptation and any help given to developing countries. The requirements for developing countries are less onerous, but are increasing as their reporting capacity improves. Funding and technical assistance is made available to help developing countries put together their reports.

Biennial Reports (BRs)
Introduced in 2014, a BR describes a developed (Annex I) country’s GHG emissions/removal, along with how much finance they have provided to developing countries and to whom. BRs also report on technology transfer and capacity building support to developing countries and regional bodies. The most recent are the BR4s and can be found at “Fourth Biennial Reports”.

The Paris Agreement called for improvements to reporting, making it easier to compare progress of a country with what it pledged in its NDC. The improved reporting initiative is known as the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) and will lead to BRs being replaced by Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs) from 2024.

Biennial Update Reports (BURs)
A Biennial Update Report gives an update of a developing country’s GHG emissions/ removal, mitigation action, technical/capacity-building needs, and support received. The first BURs (BUR1) were submitted in 2014. BURs can be submitted as a separate document or as part of the National Communication (NC). This should be two yearly, although Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have more flexibility on this. See all BUR submissions. The Consultative Group of Experts (CGE) provides technical help to developing countries to prepare their NCs and BURs and the GEF (Global Environment Facility) provides financial support, either directly or through an implementing agency.

National Communications (NCs)
In 2003, it was agreed that all countries should report on the steps they were taking to implement the UNFCCC. This included information on national circumstances, GHG emissions/removals, programmes to mitigate and adapt to climate change and any gaps in their financial, technical and capacity building capabilities. Before the introduction of BRs, NCs were the main source of country information about GHGs.

The reporting requirements are different for developing and developed countries - see the NCs of developing countries and the NCs of developed countries. The Consultative Group of Experts (CGE) provides technical help to developing countries to prepare their NCs and BURs and the GEF (Global Environment Facility) provides financial support, either directly or through an implementing agency.

Annual inventories
Developed (Annex I) countries must submit their inventories of GHGs (emissions and removal) by April of every year – see them all at National Inventory Submissions 2020. The UNFCCC brings together this information to produce an overall report on GHG emissions and removal in Annex I countries a few months later in June – see the 2020 Aggregate information on GHG emissions.

Standardised reporting formats
UNFCCC provides guidance to Annex I countries, laying out how information on GHGs and the provision of financial, technical and capacity-building help to developing countries, should be submitted in BRs, NCs and annual inventories. For each annual inventory reporting, two sets of data are required:

Common Reporting Format (CRF) – a standardised set of tables which each country must complete
National Inventory Report (NIR) – a description of how the data was put together and changes compared with the previous report

As well as for reporting GHGs, CRF tables are required for reporting financial, technical and capacity-building support to developing countries, by developed countries (Annex II) in their BRs. International climate finance data is also provided voluntarily by some Eastern European countries (Economies in Transition (EIT)) and some developing countries. These CRF tables give details of a country’s climate financial contributions through the various climate funds, other multilateral channels and country-to-country (bilateral) finance.

UNFCCC reports
The UNFCCC brings together all the data from BRs, NCs and the annual inventories from Annex I countries into the following reports and online portals:

All BR information (GHG + finance, technology and capacity building)

GHG – annual reports

National Greenhouse gas inventory - a summary of annual inventories
Aggregate GHGs – a detailed comparison of countries by sources and sinks
Time Series – Annex I portal

Climate Finance

Biennial Assessment

Climate Finance Data Portal

The aims of UNFCCC reporting are to assess the global progress on GHG mitigation and to give countries feedback on whether their reporting is robust. The latest Synthesis of Biennial Reports shows that GHG emissions from Annex I countries have declined by 13% since 1990 (see graph below), but most of this was due to emissions reductions in Eastern European countries (economies in transition - EITs). The contribution of land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) boosted the decline in GHGs to 18.5%, but this contribution is not usually included in the figures, as these are unstable carbon sinks and GHGs could be released back into the atmosphere.

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