A key priority is to support the global stock take process of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which creates a space for a continuous political momentum for enhancing the implementation of the Paris Agreement and strengthening the global response to climate change. The purpose of the global stock take is to assess the collective progress towards achieving the near- and long-term objectives of the Agreement, considering mitigation, adaptation and the means of implementation. The first global stock take that will be effective in 2023 shall be based on the best available science assessed through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), providing a common scientific platform. This requires new research to account for cost-efficient observation-based approaches to monitor greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes and their trends with high accuracy and precision. More reliable and precise quantification of GHG emissions and sinks from in-situ data and satellite earth observation are necessary in order to identify areas with fast changes, monitor the response of ecosystems to land use and land management drivers, the GHG impacts of shifts in energy use and to bring improved descriptions of key processes and feedbacks.
Currently, the detailed GHG emission data compilation at national scale and its regular updating is the mandate of national inventory agencies. This scheme follows the IPCC Guidelines and has quality control and verification procedures based on audits that will represent the backbone of the transparency framework under the Paris Agreement. Current UNFCCC procedures do not incorporate independent large-scale observation-derived GHG budgets. However, with IG3IS support, there are a few countries (e.g. Switzerland, UK, and Australia) that are already using atmospheric GHG measurements as an additional consistency check of their national declarations.
While IG3IS would like to continue empowering individual countries to verify their national inventories, however, we would also like to make available GHG inversion results for GHG budgets and their uncertainties at national scale on a web data visualization platform. This would create a uniform way for all countries to be able to verify their emissions and compare them to the global stock take. Ideally, this same inversion data at the national scale could then be scaled down to the regional scale, so as to allow nations to compare GHG emitters within their borders. With both sets of data, national governments could uncover the nature of their GHG emissions, and thus create policy and strategies targeting the most cost and time effective reductions.
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