The Greenhouse Gas Emission and Removal Estimating System (SEEG) is an initiative of the Climate Observatory that includes the production of annual estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Brazil, analytical documents on the evolution of emissions and a web portal to provide simple and clear system methods and data.
METHODOLOGICAL REFERENCE
Created in 2013, the Estimates of Emissions and Removals of Greenhouse Gases are generated according to the guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), based on the methodology of the Brazilian Inventories of Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals prepared by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI), and in data obtained from government reports, institutes, research centers, sector entities and non-governmental organizations.
The SEEG methodology was published in the journal NATURE in 2018. To access the complete methodology, click here.
SCOPE
All five sectors that are sources of emissions - Agriculture, Energy, Land Use Change, Industrial Processes and Waste with the same degree of detail contained in the emissions inventories are evaluated. The data provided in SEEG's Collection 8 is a series covering the period from 1970 to 2021, except for the Land Use Change Sector that has the series from 1990 to 2021. The period prior to 1990 is not covered by inventories of emissions. SEEG data are also presented in a form allocated by the 26 States and the Federal District. In 2020 the data allocation reached 96% (only 4% of the emissions could not be allocated in any state).
The data includes emissions and GHG removals and are available for consultation also Bunker data (emissions by international maritime and air transport).
In SEEG Collections 6 and 7, the first experiment of allocation of emissions at the municipal level was included for all more than 600 municipalities in the State of São Paulo covering the period from 2007 to 2015.
From the SEEG 8 collection, the allocation of emissions began in all Brazilian municipalities covering the period from 2000 to 2018. Municipal data are published a few months after the publication of data from Brazil and States.
GASES CONSIDERED
SEEG considers all greenhouse gases contained in the national inventory as CO2, CH4, N2O and HFCs and data are also presented in carbon equivalent (CO2e), both in the metric GWP (global warming potential) and GTP (potential of and according to the conversion factors set out in the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th IPCC report (AR2, AR4 and AR5). From Collection 5 the platform standard became the default data for GWP AR5 conversion factors since they are used in the Brazilian NDC to the Paris Accord, but all other modalities are still available for consultation on the platform (Eg CO2e and GWP AR2).
EMISSIONS AND REMEDIES NOT CONSIDERED IN THE INVENTORY (NCI)
Additionally, from SEEG Collection 4, an estimation of emissions and removals of carbon in the soil was included experimentally, due to agricultural practices. These emissions and removals are not included in the national inventories of Brazil (NCI), but are an important part of achieving the goal of Brazil in the Paris Agreement (INDC).
NEW EMISSION ESTIMATION METHOD FOR LAND USE CHANGES
In SEEG's 8.0 collection, the application of the land use transition matrix method was implemented to calculate emissions and removals due to changes in land use and forests. The database for the transition matrices are the annual maps of coverage and land use produced by MapBiomas. Only in the last year of the series is deforestation data still used as a proxy for emissions calculations because of the need for a three-year kernel to confirm the transitions (-1, 0 and +1). In the case of municipal estimates, only the transition matrix method is used.
DATABASE
All SEEG data are available on a digital platform, where you can consult the data directly, as well as download the complete database with more than 150 million records, already prepared for queries with dynamic tables. The main activity data used in the calculations are also available through the platform where it is also possible to access infographics about the emissions of each sector, methodological notes that explain in detail how the data collection and production are performed and an evaluation of data quality.
OTHER COUNTRIES
From 2014 the SEEG began to be adopted by collectives from other countries. The first SEEG implemented outside Brazil was Peru and the second in India. The SEEG Global can be accessed at: http://seeg.world/.