Department of State July 30, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The United States is a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Convention sets forth requirements for UNFCCC Parties to provide a national communication that lists the steps they are taking to implement the Convention. In particular, Parties are to provide: An inventory of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removal by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol; a detailed description of the policies and measures adopted to implement their commitments under the Convention; and estimates of the effects those policies and measures will have on emissions and sinks. Subsequent guidelines further elaborate the information that Parties are to submit periodically. The United States submitted the first U.S. Climate Action Report (USCAR) to the UNFCCC Secretariat in 1994, the second in 1997, the third in 2002, and the fourth in 2007. The U.S. Government is currently preparing its fifth national communication, which is due to the UNFCCC secretariat on January 1, 2010. The purpose of this announcement is to notify interested members of the public of this process and to solicit contributions and input on the issues covered in the national communication for the purpose of preparing the report. The State Department intends to make available for public review a draft national communication in fall of 2009.