The greenhouse gas inventory of the Province of Siena

As a result of increasing warnings by members of the scientific community about the possible harmful effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme in 1988, in order to assess the available scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information concerning possible future climate change. The aim of our project is to use the "Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories," in order to conduct a Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the province of Siena. This will quantify greenhouse gas sources and sinks at a local (provincial government) level. The inventory will be useful when governing bodies discuss community planning, where that planning may have an impact on the size of the sources and sinks. We conducted our inventory with data from the years 1999 and 2000. The Siena province emitted 1818 Gg (gigagrams) of CO2 into the atmosphere in the year 1999, due to the combustion of fossil fuels for energy purposes. The major contributors to this emission are natural gas, diesel fuel, gasoline and blended fuel oil, in descending order of importance. A significant portion of the CO2 derives from combustion outside the province, by the national electric power provider. However, the large presence of rural areas and woods within the Siena province contributes to a calculated CO2 sequestration of approximately 1119 Gg CO2. Global Warming Potentials of the greenhouse gases are utilized: the net result is that the forests may balance approximately 60% of the greenhouse gas arising from the province's fossil fuel usage and the methane produced by its solid waste disposal sites.