As a country Party to the UNFCCC, the Philippines prepared and submitted its Initial National Communication on Climate Change. The National Communication contains a national inventory of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases, a description of steps taken or envisaged by the country to implement its commitment and other information to the achievement of the objective of the Convention. In 1994, the Philippines released a total equivalent amount of 100,738 ktons of CO₂ into the atmosphere (Table 1).

This is due to the combined effect of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the four sectors of energy, industry, agriculture, and wastes, and the net uptake (sink) of GHGs from the land use/change forestry (LUCF) sector. This amount, however, is still minimal relative to the GHG emissions of other nations, especially those of developed country parties to the UNFCCC.

Of the four sectors, energy accounted for about 49% of the national total followed by agriculture (33%), industry (11%), and wastes (7%) (Table 2).

It will be noted, however, that energy is grouped with the transport sector, which accounts for half of the emissions with power generation accounting for the other half. In the agricultural sector, rice paddy cultivation and domestic livestock are the primary sources of GHG release. For industry, sources are found mainly in the cement and metal processing industries (86%) while CH4 emissions are largely from solid wastes. The GHG emissions in the energy sector (which is largely CO2) come mainly from fuel combustion (Table 3).

A significant portion of these emissions (about 82%) is from the three major end users of fuel: the power generating industry, transportation, and manufacturing. The main fuel types used in these subsectors are conventional fuels such as oil and coal, which are contributing significantly to GHG emissions.