Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Information for Decision Making
A Framework Going Forward
_______
Committee on Development of a Framework for
Evaluating Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Information for Decision Making
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Consensus Study Report
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International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-69114-7
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-69114-1
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/26641
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information for Decision Making: A Framework Going Forward. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26641.
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COMMITTEE ON DEVELOPMENT OF A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING GLOBAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INFORMATION FOR DECISION MAKING1
DON WUEBBLES (Chair), University of Illinois
KAMAL BAWA (NAS), University of Massachusetts Boston and Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment
GABRIELLE DREYFUS, Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development
ANNMARIE ELDERING, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Retired)
FIJI GEORGE, Cheniere Energy Inc.
HEATHER GRAVEN, Imperial College London
KEVIN GURNEY, Northern Arizona University
ANGEL HSU, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
TOMOHIRO ODA, Universities Space Research Association
IRÈNE XUEREF-REMY, University of Aix-Marseille
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Staff
RACHEL SILVERN, Program Officer
RITA GASKINS, Administrative Coordinator
ROB GREENWAY, Program Associate
BRIDGET McGOVERN, Associate Program Officer
SABAH RANA, Program Assistant
PATRICIA RAZAFINDRAMBININA, Associate Program Officer
AMANDA STAUDT, Senior Board Director
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1 NAS, National Academy of Sciences.
NOTE: See Appendix E for Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest.
BOARD ON ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES AND CLIMATE1
MARY GLACKIN (Chair), The Weather Company, an IBM Business (Retired)
CYNTHIA S. ATHERTON, Heising-Simons Foundation
ELIZABETH BARNES, Colorado State University
BRADLEY R. COLMAN, The Climate Corporation
BART E. CROES, California Air Resources Board (Retired)
NEIL DONAHUE, Carnegie Mellon University
ROBERT B. DUNBAR, Stanford University
LESLEY-ANN DUPIGNY-GIROUX, University of Vermont
EFI FOUFOULA-GEORGIOU (NAE), University of California, Irvine
PETER C. FRUMHOFF, Union of Concerned Scientists
ROBERT KOPP, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
L. RUBY LEUNG (NAE), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
ZHANQING LI, University of Maryland
JONATHAN MARTIN, University of Wisconsin–Madison
AMY McGOVERN, University of Oklahoma
LINDA MEARNS, National Center for Atmospheric Research
JONATHAN PATZ, University of Wisconsin–Madison
J. MARSHALL SHEPHERD (NAS/NAE), University of Georgia
DAVID W. TITLEY, U.S. Navy (ret.), The Pennsylvania State University
ARADHNA TRIPATI, University of California, Los Angeles
ELKE WEBER, Princeton University
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Staff
AMANDA STAUDT, Senior Board Director
APURVA DAVE, Senior Program Officer
APRIL MELVIN, Senior Program Officer
AMANDA PURCELL, Senior Program Officer
STEVEN STICHTER, Senior Program Officer
ALEX REICH, Program Officer
RACHEL SILVERN, Program Officer
MORGAN DISBROW-MONZ, Associate Program Officer
BRIDGET McGOVERN, Associate Program Officer
PATRICIA RAZAFINDRAMBININA, Associate Program Officer
RITA GASKINS, Administrative Coordinator
AMY MITSUMORI, Research Associate
ROB GREENWAY, Program Associate
KYLE ALDRIDGE, Program Assistant
LINDSAY MOLLER, Program Assistant
SABAH RANA, Program Assistant
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1 NAE, National Academy of Engineering; NAS, National Academy of Sciences.
Acknowledgments
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
DAVID ALLEN (NAE), The University of Texas at Austin
RONALD COHEN, University of California, Berkeley
INEZ FUNG (NAS), University of California, Berkeley
STEVEN HAMBURG, Environmental Defense Fund
LISA HANLE, Independent Consultant
RODRIGO JIMENEZ, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
AMY LUERS, Microsoft
PAUL PALMER, University of Edinburgh
EMMA STRUBELL, Carnegie Mellon University
FENJUAN WANG, National Institute of Environmental Studies, Japan
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by CHRISTOPHER FIELD (NAS), Stanford University and SUSAN TRUMBORE (NAS), Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. They were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
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Preface
The science is clear—climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity. Almost every day the news reports on one or more new extreme weather-related events having serious impacts on some part of the world. Many thousands of observational-based studies have documented the increasing surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures on climate time scales. These observations also show many other aspects of a changing climate—for example, the vast majority of glaciers, including major parts of Greenland and Antarctica, are melting, snow cover is diminishing, sea ice is shrinking, sea levels are rising, oceans are acidifying—and many of these extreme weather events are becoming more intense than they were in the past.
It is also certain now more than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that human activities are largely responsible for these changes in the Earth’s climate. Human activities have resulted in emissions that are causing significant changes in atmospheric concentrations of radiatively important gases and particles (collectively referred to as greenhouse gases [GHGs] in this report). As a result of these changes in climate, decision makers are faced with ever-increasing pressure to understand GHG emissions and sinks from human-related and natural sources and their impacts on the Earth’s climate as part of emissions mitigation and resiliency strategies. This decision making is important at all spatial scales from local to global if GHG emissions are to be sufficiently reduced to meet agreed upon targets to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.
Improving the characterization of activity-specific contributions to anthropogenic GHG emissions could improve climate predictions, inform decision making at all levels, and enable a more focused and rigorous response to climate change. A more consistent understanding of the impacts of changes in concentrations of GHGs on climate change requires enhanced characterization and quantification of the sources, sinks, and related processes affecting GHG emissions. Enhancing this understanding is therefore fundamental to understanding climate change and the policy responses taken by decision makers.
This fast-track report develops a framework for evaluating anthropogenic GHG emissions information to support decision making. In this study, the Committee examines existing and emerging approaches used in the development and evaluation of global anthropogenic GHG emissions
inventories. The developed framework to evaluate emissions information also includes guidance for policy makers about their use in decision making. Given the timely need for gaining an enhanced understanding of human-related emissions, the focus here is on anthropogenic emissions, and this report was completed on an accelerated timeline to be available for international policy discussions later this year.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) selected 10 experts in climate processes, human-related emissions, and resulting emissions inventories to be members of the Committee responsible for writing this report. The fast-track process meant that the Committee had a little over 2 months to prepare this report to go to review, and then a few more weeks to respond to the National Academies’ external peer-review process. In addressing its tasks, the Committee met twice in person. The Committee also held two information gathering meetings to solicit external input from the international community. The first workshop focused on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Monitoring, Inventories, and Data Integration: Understanding the Landscape with 12 presentations by scientists from the United States, Canada, and Europe. The second workshop, Development of a Framework for Evaluating Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information for Decision Making, brought together 29 international experts for “lightning” presentations, and invited moderators led participants through a series of World Café breakout discussions. The Committee also solicited written technical input from the community. These information gathering steps were followed by a series of virtual meetings of the Committee as it worked on the report. Following standard National Academies’ procedures, the draft report then underwent a rigorous process of external peer review prior to publication.
I want to finish by thanking the members of the Committee for their extensive efforts and interactions in preparing this report. Every member of the Committee has made seminal contributions to the resulting report. A special thank you goes to those who presented to the Committee and enriched this report in doing so, and to the reviewers who helped us to sharpen and focus the report. Finally, I am sure I speak for my fellow Committee members by expressing our sincere thanks to the entire National Academies’ team led by Dr. Rachel Silvern for the huge amount of help they provided to the Committee throughout the process of completing this report.
Don Wuebbles, Chair
Committee on Development of a Framework for Evaluating
Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information for Decision Making
Contents
Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Defining Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases for This Study
Defining Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information Scales for This Study
User and Decision-Maker Needs for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information Across Scales
Barriers to Widespread Use of Emissions Information
The Committee’s Approach to This Study
2 CURRENT APPROACHES FOR QUANTIFYING ANTHROPOGENIC GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
Current Status and Uncertainties of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimates
3 STRUCTURAL AND TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS OF THE CURRENT GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INFORMATION LANDSCAPE
4 FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INFORMATION
Pillars in Establishing a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Framework
Framework for Evaluating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information
Case Studies Applying the Framework
Themes of Framework Evaluation for General Approaches and Case Studies
Advancing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information Capabilities, Trust, and Accessibility
Addressing Key Data and Information Gaps and Uncertainties
Operationalizing Current Capabilities
Striving for Hybrid Approaches
Ensuring Usability, Timeliness and Effective Communication of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information
A ACRONYMS, INITIALISMS, AND GLOSSARY
B ATMOSPHERIC OBSERVATIONS: METHODS AND EXAMPLES
C CONTRIBUTORS OF INPUT TO THE STUDY