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Norwegian Environment Statistics

SEIS Country Visit Workshop – NorwayNovember 13th, 2008

Svein HomstvedtHead of Divison

Divison for Environment Statistics

Statistics Norway

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The role and response for Statistics Norway

According to the Statistical act:

• To provide society with statistics of important topics• To decide which statistics should have priority• To decide which institutions and persons who should

provide basic data for statistics• To give advise to official institutions on the content and

arrangement of administrative systems• To give advise to official institutions when establishing

statistical surveys

• Statistical work is also guided by the ”European Statistics Code of Practice”

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Environment statistics has changed over time Norway 1970s and 1980s focused on resource accounts...

– fish– forest (timber)– minerals– oil and gas

...and in the 1990s and onwards; pollution.– air– water– waste

Developing areas are– environment and economy– land use– chemicals– noise– municipality actions– bio-diversity?

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A variety of data collection methods•Administrative registers

– (buildings, population, industry emissions, traffic etc.)

•Statistical registers – (business register etc.)

•Statistics collected in other governmental institutions– (water supply)

•Basic statistics– (energy, transport, agriculture, industry, service)

•Derived statistics– (national accounts)

•Statistics Norway’s environmental data reporting– (waste treatment, waste water treatment,

environmental planning and management in municipalities)

•Maps through Geographical Information System treatment– (buildings, roads, land use etc.)

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Analytical / derived work areas

• Natural Resources and the Environment

• Agriculture and the Environment

• Transport and the Environment

• Indicators for Sustainable Development Report

• Others

          

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International contacts

• Primarily with Eurostat – which is part of Go4– reporting (waste, water, NAMEA, etc.)– working groups, DIMESA– Task forces

• Also with OECD – Joint Questionnaire– Working Group on Environment Information and Outlooks)

• UN – London Group– Oslo Group– Less with UNSTAT and UNSD

• To some extent the EEA– TERM

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Official Statistics on GHG emissionsOfficial Statistics on GHG emissions - the Norwegian Model - the Norwegian Model

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The DPSIR-chain – without the

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National arrangement – a close cooperation

The SFT and SSB ”practical teamwork”:

• SSB publishes the national figures.

• Before publishing; the results are discussed between SFT and SSB:– what is the main news?– any changes in trends?– any sources with increasing/decreasing contributions– what are the driving forces behind the trends?

• The SFT experts are given muzzle to their supervisors and colleges, as well as to their ministry. This is a premise and accepted of all participants

• At the publishing moment, SFT releases a short news heading, with a link to the SSB websites

• Immediately afterwords, basic statistics is transferred from SSB to the SFT Miljøstatus website

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National arrangement – cont.

Development and financing

• As part of yearly planning, SFT and SSB discusses the most important improvement projects, the most low hanging fruits as well as ordinary statistical production

• After agreement, SSB applies for funding of these projects

• Funding is given as an assignment, but no contracts are signed

• During the year; there are informal contacts on daily basis

• The amount of financial support is ca. 3,5 mill. NOK

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Reporting to UNFCCC Reporting to UNFCCC Institutional arrangements and cooperationInstitutional arrangements and cooperation

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Some concluding national remarks• Statistics Norway in unique position: Trusted as independent and

serious, providing the ”correct answer” on GHG emissions as well as on other environmental topics

• The Norwegian GHG emission estimates, however not an international reporting obligation for Statistics Norway, benefit from being Official Statistics, hence high quality also ensured through European Code of Practice and the UN Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics

• Great advantage for emission compilers to work in close contact with the expertise on activity data used in estimating emissions, and valuable to have easy access to other data describing the drivers and structures of society

• Future challenges: Find resources to meet the greatly increased demand for information and provide both better quality as well as new statistics on different subjects, for instance abatement measures, trading quotas, analytical statistics on connections etc.

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Some considerations concerning international cooperation 1

• The close cooperation between SSB and SFT is extremely important for the quality and the use of resources for international reporting

• Of course, we support the endeavour to establish the SEIS

• Most of our statistics is in line with the plans for content of SEIS

• We are in favor of close international cooperation and the process of establishing the European Data Centre Structure. Much resources could be saved from double work.

• At the same time, areas of responsibility should not be totally separated. That would lead to no areas of professional cooperation and less creativity in information production

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Some considerations concerning international cooperation 2

• EEA and Eurostat are the leading agencies in international environment information production, JRC not to be forgotten.

• Cooperation between them has improved a lot recent years. There is much more confidence between the institusions than before.

• A

• However, they still have steps to go building a Shared Environmental Information System – SEIS

• An astonishing fact is that in the ”Communication from the Commision on SEIS [COM(2008) 46 final], EEA is given a role, while Eurostat is not mentioned. Why not? And what is the role of the ten European data centres?

• The issues of confidentiality (an important part of Code of Practice) and principle of public access to environmental information is a challenge to the European institutions, which is not yet solved

Thanks for your attention

• svein.homstvedt@ssb.no

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