Kick the Habit: A UN Guide to Climate Neutrality

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,

KICK THE HABIT THE CYCLE – COUNT AND ANALYSE 72