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

___________________

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

___________________

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:

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

SUMMARY

1 INTRODUCTION

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

Report Roadmap

2 CURRENT APPROACHES FOR QUANTIFYING ANTHROPOGENIC GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

Activity-Based Approaches

Atmospheric-Based Approaches

Hybrid Approaches

Current Status and Uncertainties of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimates

3 STRUCTURAL AND TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS OF THE CURRENT GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INFORMATION LANDSCAPE

Structural Limitations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change National Reporting Process

Barriers to Capacity Building

Current Institutions and Their Limitations

Technical Challenges with Current Approaches

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

5 RECOMMENDATIONS

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

Concluding Thoughts

REFERENCES

APPENDIXES

A ACRONYMS, INITIALISMS, AND GLOSSARY

B ATMOSPHERIC OBSERVATIONS: METHODS AND EXAMPLES

C CONTRIBUTORS OF INPUT TO THE STUDY

D BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

E DISCLOSURE OF UNAVOIDABLE CONFLICTS OF INTEREST