STATEMENT: UN Emissions Gap Report Finds Global Action On Climate Change Inadequate

James Anderson — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:46:48 -0500

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The latest Emissions Gap Report, by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Climate Foundation, is being released today. The report finds that emissions are now around 14 percent above where they need to be. The gap is on course to be 8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2020, which is 2 Gt higher than last year’s assessment.

Following is a statement by Jennifer Morgan, Director, Climate and Energy Program, World Resources Institute:

“This report is another harsh reminder that the world is simply not moving aggressively enough to tackle the climate challenge. The gap is growing and carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, and yet the current pledges and commitments by countries remain sorely inadequate. We are already seeing how climate change—with more extreme weather events, rising seas and more droughts—is taking its toll on people, property and our economy. Without a rapid change in direction, the world is headed more and more firmly down a path to even more severe changes that will be felt around the globe.”

“As we look to the Doha climate talks, it’s essential that negotiators come prepared with a renewed sense of urgency. As the Emissions Gap Report points out, it remains possible to achieve the carbon reductions needed to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius. The policy and technological solutions are within our reach. What we need is the political will and ambition to move forward with these solutions. We need to close the gap before it’s too late.”

-END-

A Seven-Country Assessment of National Capacities to Track Forest Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Removal

Sarah Parsons — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:16:54 -0400

Summary

Forest carbon monitoring is critical to evaluating whether policies aiming to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from forest change are achieving their goals. The objective of this brief is to highlight the technical capacity needs for implementing national systems for forest carbon monitoring. This paper assesses the technical capacity in seven countries—Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Thailand—for monitoring forests, forest change, and associated carbon dioxide emissions and removals. The results can be used by national agencies and the international community, including donor agencies and non-governmental organizations, to identify priorities for capacity-building and funding.

Based on findings from the assessment, the seven countries would benefit from the following:

Establishing processes to regularly and more frequently update data to enable understanding of trends in forest change.
Ensuring consistency of monitoring methods to allow comparison of data and interpretation of change over time.
Improving spatial resolution of forest monitoring where important drivers of forest change are difficult to detect with mid-resolution satellite imagery.
Establishing or updating national forest inventories regularly to enable accurate estimates of carbon dioxide emissions/removals.
Developing protocols and training programs to guide and harmonize sub-national data collection.
Strengthening data management and sharing among government agencies to enable integration of forest change information with other land use, permitting and tenure data.

Topic: carbon monitoring

STATEMENT: UN Emissions Gap Report Finds Global Action On Climate Change Inadequate

A Seven-Country Assessment of National Capacities to Track Forest Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Removal

Summary