International

2006 IPCC Guidelines and 2019 Refinement

The international default methods behind every national inventory. Slate's widest source by method count, and the only one it transcribes by hand.

2006 Guidelines 2019 Refinement, Volume 2 AR6 WG1 Chapter 7 (GWPs)

factor releases

method parameter sets

1,451

published activities

volumes drawn on

Overview

The 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories set the default (Tier 1) methods and factors every country can fall back on. Slate uses them for activities the national publishers don't cover: industrial processes, livestock, soils, land-use change, landfills operated on site, incineration and more.

IPCC publishes these as numbered tables inside PDF chapters. Its Emission Factor Database states it has not been through formal IPCC review, so it is not the citable source; the chapter table is. Slate's data files are therefore its own transcription, one file per published table.

Some IPCC methods are not a factor at all. Landfill methane follows first-order decay over decades of deposits, and manure N₂O depends on how the farm handles manure. Slate stores these as method parameters and runs IPCC's own equations, instead of squeezing them into a per-tonne number.

At a glance

Publisher: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Task Force on National GHG Inventories
Code in Slate: UN_IPCC
Covers: Combustion defaults, fugitive coal, oil and gas, industrial processes, agriculture, land use and waste methods
Publishing schedule: Irregular. The 2019 Refinement is the latest revision; it changes some chapters and leaves others untouched.
Licence: © IPCC. Reproduced with attribution.
Bulk download: Not offered by Slate; use the publisher's own pages

Official files

These go straight to the publisher, never to a copy hosted by Slate. Where a page holds several files, the note names the exact one Slate imports.

Chapter indexVolume 2: Energy
Stationary and mobile combustion; fugitive emissions from coal, oil and gas.
Open
Chapter indexVolume 3: Industrial Processes and Product Use
Minerals, chemicals, metals, electronics, non-energy products, ODS substitutes, other products.
Open
Chapter indexVolume 4: Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use
Livestock, manure, managed soils, lime and urea, carbon stocks, biomass, peat, harvested wood.
Open
Chapter indexVolume 5: Waste
Solid waste disposal (first-order decay), biological treatment, incineration.
Open
Chapter index2019 Refinement, Volume 2
Revised fugitive methods for coal mining and oil and gas.
Open
ReferenceAR5 WG1 Chapter 8
Published 2013. Table 8.A.1 underwrites Slate's AR5 GWP values.
Open
ReferenceAR6 WG1 Chapter 7 and Supplementary Material
Published 2021. Tables 7.15 and 7.SM.7 underwrite Slate's AR6 GWP values.
Open

Releases in Slate

A release is one immutable published edition. Slate keeps the publisher's file unmodified, records its checksum, and selects a release by the date of each activity, so a 2022 record is always priced on 2022 data.

Release	Edition	Valid for	Values	Blank	CO₂e	GWP basis	Status
IPCC 2006, Vol 2 Stationary Combustion	`vol2-stationary`	From 1990, open-ended	265	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 2 Mobile Combustion	`vol2-mobile`	From 1990, open-ended	43	51	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 2 Ch 4 Coal Mining	`vol2-coal`	From 1990, open-ended	12	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 2 Ch 4 Oil and Natural Gas	`vol2-oil-gas`	From 1990, open-ended	94	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 3 Ch 2 Mineral Industry	`vol3-mineral`	From 1990, open-ended	27	1	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 3 Ch 3 Chemical Industry	`vol3-chemical`	From 1990, open-ended	74	3	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 3 Ch 4 Metal Industry	`vol3-metal`	From 1990, open-ended	63	5	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 3 Ch 5 Non-Energy Products	`vol3-non-energy`	From 1990, open-ended	6	2	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 3 Ch 6 Electronics	`vol3-electronics`	From 1990, open-ended	4	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 4 Ch 10 Enteric Fermentation	`vol4-enteric`	From 1990, open-ended	34	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 4 Ch 10 Manure Management (CH₄)	`vol4-manure`	From 1990, open-ended	751	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2006, Vol 4 Ch 11 Lime and Urea	`vol4-lime-urea`	From 1990, open-ended	3	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Active
IPCC 2019 Refinement, Coal Mining	`vol2-coal`	From 1990, open-ended	18	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Imported, not active
IPCC 2019 Refinement, Oil and Natural Gas	`vol2-oil-gas`	From 1990, open-ended	69	0	Per-gas masses	Your GWP set	Imported, not active

Blank counts are cells the publisher left empty. Slate stores them as missing, never as zero.

What Slate uses it for

Stationary combustion by source category

Four tables, one per IPCC source category (energy industries, manufacturing, commercial, residential and agricultural). CO₂ is the same in all four; CH₄ and N₂O are not. Wood in a commercial boiler has ten times the methane factor of wood at a power station.

Fugitive emissions

Coal mining and oil and gas systems: Volume 2 Chapter 4. Not refrigerant leaks, which are mass × GWP.

Industrial processes

Cement, lime, glass and carbonates; ammonia, nitric and adipic acid and petrochemicals; iron, steel and aluminium; electronics; lubricants and waxes; ODS substitutes; electrical equipment.

Agriculture and land

Enteric fermentation and manure methane per head; manure N₂O; direct and indirect N₂O from managed soils; lime and urea; soil carbon stock change; forest biomass; settlement trees; land conversion; peat extraction; flooded land; harvested wood products.

Waste you operate

First-order decay for a landfill you run, biological treatment and incineration. Not waste you send away: that uses DEFRA or EPA per-tonne factors.

How Slate handles it

The decisions that change numbers, and why they were made the way they were.

01
Two independent checks on every value
A test asserts against values transcribed a second time, by hand, from the PDF. On import, Slate also runs IPCC's own identity across all 53 fuels: CO₂ factor = carbon content × oxidation × 44/12 × 1000. A slip on either page fails the import.
02
Published inconsistencies are kept as published
Where IPCC's own tables disagree, Slate stores what was printed and tests that the disagreement persists. Examples: Table 2.4's Coal Tar CH₄ lower bound (30) is above its own default (10); Table 6.3's boreal value is 0.25 where its stated rule gives 1.25; Tables 5.2 and 2.6 give clinical waste different fossil carbon shares.
03
No grid electricity factor, by design
A national inventory counts power-station fuel under energy industries, so IPCC publishes no per-kWh consumer factor. An IPCC-only organisation sees Scope 1 fill in while Scope 2 stays empty, and Slate explains why on screen.
04
The 2019 Refinement is checked chapter by chapter
It revises some chapters and states "no refinement" for others. Stationary combustion tables are unchanged, so there is no 2019 release for them. Coal mining keeps every methane figure and adds a CO₂ method; oil and gas is restructured. Both refined editions are imported but not switched on, because switching changes existing figures.
05
Methods with no default are refused, not guessed
Where IPCC gives a range but no default (for example a farm's manure management split, or a stand's above-ground biomass), Slate asks for the value. A missing input that the reporter can supply is flagged as actionable on the record.

Check a figure yourself

1
Open the volume and chapter named on the record's provenance panel.
2
Go to the table number cited. Slate keeps IPCC's own table and source-category codes on every row.
3
Read the default value from the table, and the equation from the chapter text for method-based categories.

Where to find the reference

Every calculated record in Slate has a provenance panel showing the release, the publisher's own row reference and the GWP set applied. See Calculated Emissions & Errors.

Licence and attribution

Attribution: IPCC 2006, 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Prepared by the National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme. Published: IGES, Japan.
Note: Slate shows IPCC values with attribution and links to the publication. It does not offer them as a bulk download.