The world's nations are moving toward agreements that will bind us together in an effort to limit future greenhouse gas emissions. With such agreements will come the need for all nations to make accurate estimates of greenhouse gas emissions and to monitor changes over time. In this context, the present book focuses on the greenhouse gases that result from human activities, have long lifetimes in the atmosphere and thus will change global climate for decades to millennia or more, and are currently included in international agreements. The book devotes considerably more space to CO2 than to the other gases because CO2 is the largest single contributor to global climate change and is thus the focus of many mitigation efforts. Only data in the public domain were considered because public access and transparency are necessary to build trust in a climate treaty. The book concludes that each country could estimate fossil-fuel CO2 emissions accurately enough to support monitoring of a climate treaty. However, current methods are not sufficiently accurate to check these self-reported estimates against independent data or to estimate other greenhouse gas emissions. Strategic investments would, within 5 years, improve reporting of emissions by countries and yield a useful capability for independent verification of greenhouse gas emissions reported by countries.

Global climate change is a natural process that currently appears to be strongly influenced by human activities, which increase atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG). Agriculture contributes about 20% of the world’s global radiation forcing from carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and produces 50% of the methane and 70% of the nitrous oxide of the human-induced emission. Managing Agricultural Greenhouse Gases synthesizes the wealth of information generated from the GRACEnet (Greenhouse gas Reduction through Agricultural Carbon Enhancement network) effort with contributors from a variety of backgrounds, and reports findings with important international applications. Frames responses to challenges associated with climate change within the geographical domain of the U.S., while providing a useful model for researchers in the many parts of the world that possess similar ecoregions Covers not only soil C dynamics but also nitrous oxide and methane flux, filling a void in the existing literature Educates scientists and technical service providers conducting greenhouse gas research, industry, and regulators in their agricultural research by addressing the issues of GHG emissions and ways to reduce these emissions Synthesizes the data from top experts in the world into clear recommendations and expectations for improvements in the agricultural management of global warming potential as an aggregate of GHG emissions

International concern for the continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions, and the potentially damaging consequences of resultant global climate change, led to the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by 155 nations at the Earth Summit in June 1992. The Convention came into force on 21 March 1994, three months after receiving its 50th ratification. All Parties to the Convention are required to compile, periodically update, and publish national inventories of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and sinks using comparable methodologies. In support of this process, the US Country Studies Program (US CSP) is providing financial and technical assistance to 56 developing and transition countries for conducting national inventories. This book presents the results of preliminary national inventories prepared by countries participating in the US CSP that are ready to share their interim findings. In some cases, inventories were prepared with support from other organizations. Preliminary inventories of twenty countries in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States, and Latin America are presented, as well as regional and global syntheses of the national results. The regional and global syntheses also discuss results of eleven other preliminary national inventories that have been published elsewhere with the assistance of other programs. Results are discussed in the context of national and regional socioeconomic characteristics, and the regional and global syntheses compare national inventory estimates to other published estimates that are based largely on international databases. Papers also discuss inventory development issues, such as data collection and emission factor determination, and problems associated with applying the IPCC inventory methodologies. The preliminary inventory results reported here represent significant progress towards meeting country commitments under the Framework Convention, and provide useful information for refining international greenhouse gas emission databases and improving inventory methodologies. As the first book to compile national greenhouse gas emission estimates prepared by national experts in developing countries and countries with economies in transition, this will be an invaluable resource to scientists, policymakers, and development specialists in national, regional and global anthropogenic sources and sinks of greenhouse gases.

Understanding, quantifying, and tracking atmospheric methane and emissions is essential for addressing concerns and informing decisions that affect the climate, economy, and human health and safety. Atmospheric methane is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to global warming. While carbon dioxide is by far the dominant cause of the rise in global average temperatures, methane also plays a significant role because it absorbs more energy per unit mass than carbon dioxide does, giving it a disproportionately large effect on global radiative forcing. In addition to contributing to climate change, methane also affects human health as a precursor to ozone pollution in the lower atmosphere. Improving Characterization of Anthropogenic Methane Emissions in the United States summarizes the current state of understanding of methane emissions sources and the measurement approaches and evaluates opportunities for methodological and inventory development improvements. This report will inform future research agendas of various U.S. agencies, including NOAA, the EPA, the DOE, NASA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Uncertainty analysis is a key component of national greenhouse gases inventory analyses. The issues that are raised by the authors in this volume, and the role that uncertainty analysis plays in many of their arguments and/or proposals, highlight the importance of such efforts. Coverage includes: bottom-up versus top-down emission inventory approaches, compliance and verification issues, and the role of uncertainty in emissions trading schemes.

The assessment of greenhouse gases emitted to and removed from the atmosphere is high on the international political and scientific agendas. Growing international concern and cooperation regarding the climate change problem have increased the need for policy-oriented solutions to the issue of uncertainty in, and related to, inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The approaches to addressing uncertainty discussed here reflect attempts to improve national inventories, not only for their own sake but also from a wider, systems analytical perspective — a perspective that seeks to strengthen the usefulness of national inventories under a compliance and/or global monitoring and reporting framework. These approaches demonstrate the benefits of including inventory uncertainty in policy analyses. The authors of the contributed papers show that considering uncertainty helps avoid situations that can, for example, create a false sense of certainty or lead to invalid views of subsystems. This may eventually prevent related errors from showing up in analyses. However, considering uncertainty does not come for free. Proper treatment of uncertainty is costly and demanding because it forces us to make the step from “simple to complex” and only then to discuss potential simplifications. Finally, comprehensive treatment of uncertainty does not offer policymakers quick and easy solutions.

The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard helps companies and other organizations to identify, calculate, and report GHG emissions. It is designed to set the standard for accurate, complete, consistent, relevant and transparent accounting and reporting of GHG emissions.