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KICK THE HABIT
THE CYCLE – COUNT AND ANALYSE
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COUNTRIES
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change spells out in detail the
way in which countries are to monitor and report their GHG emissions.
Doing this accurately and comprehensively as well as covering all countries
is obviously central to developing policies for tackling climate change.
Under the Kyoto Protocol national governments are asked to calculate their
GHG emissions, and the Annex 1 (“developed”) countries’ reports have
been audited by the UNFCCC at least twice.
Verifying and reporting your emissions
Once the inventory is complete according to the definition you have chosen,
it might by of interest to have it independently verified by a third-party certi-
fier. Verification determines whether an inventory is free of material mis-
statement. The need for verification depends very much on the intended
purpose of the inventory. If it is intended to comply with regulations, or to
be widely disseminated to the public, for example, then strict quality control
measures are necessary and verification may well play a role. Verification is
expensive and the efforts should be worth it, as for example with emission
trading: in order to trade GHG allowances with other systems, data must be
transparent and verifiable.
The need for verification is also determined by the GHG programme you
chose to report to. There are numerous voluntary or mandatory interna-
tional, national, sub-national, government or non-governmental authorities
that register, certify, or regulate GHG emissions or removals independently
of the company.
Analyse:
How are we doing? And what about everyone else?
When you publish the inventory you make it accessible to anyone who may be
interested (depending, of course, on the nature and size of your organization
– as an individual, you might want to talk to your neighbours, friends, family,