As a Party to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), since 1994 Germany has been obliged to prepare, publish and regularly update national inventories of greenhouse-gas emissions. In February 2005, the Kyoto Protocol entered into force, thereby imposing additional, more extensive obligations with regard to the creation and review of emissions inventories and to emissions reporting. As a result of Europe's own implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, via the adoption of EU Decision 280/20041, these requirements became legally binding for Germany in spring 2004.