Greenhouse Gas Inventory

of the Philippines: Interim Report

Raquel V. Francisco
Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA)
1424 Quezon Ave., Quezon City, Philippines

Abstract

This paper presents the latest update on the greenhouse gas inventory for the Philippines, with 1990 as the base
year. The carbon dioxide sources covered in the inventory are fossil fuel buming, cement production, and land-
use change and forestry. The net emission of carbon dioxide totaled 128,620 Gg CO 2, of which land-use change
and forestry accounted for 68%. The carbon dioxide emissions from biomass burning and bunker fuel con-
sumption were not included in the total emission. The national methane emission of 1,026 Gg CH 4 was esti-
mated from biomass burning, coal mining and oil activities, rice cultivation, livestock production, and forestry
and land-use change activities. Paddy rice cultivation, which is the largest source, accounted for 36% of the
total. The emission factor used, which is one-fourth of the default value recommended by the IPCC, was based
on a preliminary study made by the Philippine Rice Research Institute, in collaboration with the International
Rice Research Institute.

1.0. Introduction in view of the various inconsistencies in available data,

The Philippines ratified the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change on August 2, 1994, be-
coming the eighty-fourth country to do so. As a develop-
ing country, the Philippines has a commitment to submit
its national communication three years from the date of
ratification; this essentially includes an inventory of 1990
greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals by
sinks.
The World Meteorological Society (WMO) and the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have
financed training workshops on methodologies for de-
veloping greenhouse gas inventories, in which the Phil-
ippines was fortunate to have participated. The national
inventory was started in December 1991, and since then,
several preliminary estimates have been made on many
sources and sinks. The inventory was not easy to develop
both national and international. The effort of the U.S.
Country Studies Program (U.S. CSP) in assisting devel-
oping countries to create/refine their national inventories
is significant. The U.S. CSP made available their team of
experts and provided support to assist the Philippines in
staying abreast of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC)-recommended rnethodologies
and to assist in resolving problems in the development of
the inventory.
The following report is not comp1ete, nor are the fig-
ures presented definitive. Efforts are being made to im-
prove and refine these estimates by gathering more
country-specific data and by identifying and filling the
information gaps. Among the planned activities are addi-
tional measurements of methane (CH4) emissions from
rice paddies and greenhouse gas estimations from land-
use change through remote sensing.

189
B. V. Braatz et al. (eds.), Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories, 189-199.
© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
 Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories: Interim Results from the U.S. Country Studies Pro gram

2.0. Methods Data on animal population were obtained from the

The methodologies used in estimating emissions of green-
house gases from various sources are consistent with the
IPCC Guidelines Jor National Greenhouse Gas Invento-
ries (UNEP et a1., 1995). Data on fuel consumption and
production activities were taken from the Overall Energy
Balance (OEB) (Table 1) made available by the Philip-
pine Department of Energy (PD OE) in units of thousand
tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE). The standard default con-
version factors for the Philippines are based on TOE and
barrels of liquid (bbl) as folIows:
Crude Oil 0.1344TOElbbl Asphalt 0.1521TOE/bbl
Premium gasoline 0.1245TOElbbl AvGas 0.1224 TOElbbl
Regular gasoline 0.1223TOE/bbl Lubes 0.1412 TOElbbl
Kerosene 0.1270TOE/bbl Greases 0.1515TOElbbl
Diesel 0.1347TOElbbl SOlvents 0.1233TOElbbl
Fueloil 0.1444TOE/bbl Coal 0.488TOElbbl
LPG 0.0922 TOE/bbl Bagasse 0.138248TOElbbl
AvTurbo 0.1270TOElbbl Agriwaste 0.14TOElbbl
Naphtha 0.1238TOElbbl
In the case of biomass fue1 burning, the annual OEB
re1eased by the PDOE does not inc1ude consumption of
biomass by the household sector. It does inc1ude the ba-
gasse and agriwaste consumed by the industrial sector.
However, a survey was conducted in 1989 to determine
energy consumption by the household sector; this inc1uded
LPG, electricity, kerosene and biomass (UNDPIESMAP,
1992). No survey was done in 1990. Hence, the data used
in this report are based upon the aforementioned report.
The data in units of weight are wet basis. Because the
carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) content are also available, it
was possible to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions
using country-specific data (Table 2).
Greenhouse gases are also produced from industrial
activities that are non-energy related, such as cement pro-
duction, the pulp and paper industry, the steel industry,
and food and beverage manufacturing. Only cement pro-
duction and the pulp and paper industry, both of which
are sources of carbon dioxide (C0 2), are considered in
this report. The total cement produced in 1990 was 164.1
million bags or 6,564 Gg at 40 kg/bag. An emission fac-
tor of 0.4985 kg CO/kg cement produced was used.
The paper and pulp industry uses lime in the prepara-
tion of digesting liquor and for eftluent treatment. The
Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP),
the only producer of pulp in the country, consumed
18,028.11 tonnes of lime in 1990. An emission factor of
0.791 kg CO/kg of lime was used.
Bureau ofAgricultural Statistics and are also available in
the Philippine Statistical Yearbook (NSCB, 1992). The
National Dairy Authority provided the number of dairy
cattle, as these were already inc1uded under cattle statis-
ties taken from the yearbook. The population of horses
and sheep was not covered in the Statistical Yearbook,
nor was it available from the Bureau of Agricultural Sta-
tistics.
In the case of CH 4 from rice production, the emission
factor of 147.84 Mg CH 4 m-2 da· l or 1.4784 kg CH 4 per
ha-day was determined from the study made during one
wet season crop at Muiioz, Nueva Ecija, which was from
mid-July to October, 1994 (Table 3). The corresponding
average mean temperature during this period was 27.8°C.
IPCC recommends a CH4 flux of 5.9 at 2TC and 6.25 kg
CH4 per ha-day at 28°C. The value of the actual measure-
ments taken by the automatic chamber method is roughly
one-fourth of the IPCC default value. The resulting CH 4
emissions using the country-specific factor were then com-
pared with the result using the IPCC default emission fac-
tor at 27°C, the average temperature for the whole
Philippines.
With regard to land-use change and forestry, aggre-
gate values were used to estimate emissions of greenhouse
gases where no distinction between forest types was made.
Consequently, the information in Table 4 was used. The
IPCC Methodology was followed to estimate net CO2 flux
from changes in forest and other woody biomass stocks
as well as from forest conversion. Soil carbon was not
inc1uded in the calculations.
3.0. Results and Discussion
The Philippine greenhouse gas inventory for 1990 is sum-
marized in Table 5. Most ofthe important sources ofC02
and CH4 , the two most important greenhouse gases, were
covered in the estimation. The total gross emissions of
CO2 amounted to 131,782 Gg CO 2, the CO 2 sequestration
from reforestation activities in 1990 was 3,162 Gg CO 2,
and the total emissions of CH4 were 1,026 Gg CH 4• More
detailed information follows in the remainder of this sec-
tion.
Fossil Fuel Combustion
The Philippines emitted an estimated total of 38,272 Gg
CO2 from fossil fuel combustion, when the reference, or

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