Central to any study of climate change is the development of an emissions inventory that identifies and quantifies a country’s primary anthropogenic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. The U.S. inventory adheres to both 1) a comprehensive and detailed methodology for estimating sources and sinks of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and 2) a common and consistent mechanism that enables signatory countries to the United Nations Framework convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to compare the relative contribution of different emission sources and greenhouse gases to climate change. Moreover, systematically and consistently estimating national and international emissions is a prerequisite for accounting for reductions and evaluating mitigation strategies.
Please see the 2006 Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks for the complete details of all U.S. emissions. You may download the entire executive summary (PDF, 28 pages, 292 kb, About PDF), which includes an overview of recent trends, the set of global warming potentials, the anthropogenic sources and sinks of greenhouse gas emissions, a brief description of emission pathways, a summary of the emission estimates, and an explanation of the relative importance of emissions from each source category.
Finally, you may access complete U.S. Inventory publications within the Site's Publications section.
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