Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Agriculture

Abstract

Countries report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals from all sectors via national GHG Inventories, submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in accordance with international climate policy agreements and technical guidelines developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The agriculture sector represents a unique challenge for national inventory compilers, especially in developing countries, due to significant difficulties in compiling and regularly updating national statistics for agriculture, forestry and land use —the first necessary step in preparing national GHG estimates. This Manual provides Member Countries with a tool and methodology to help identify, build and access he minimum set of activity data needed for GHG estimation. Required data is largely drawn from country’s official national agricultural and forestry statistics, as disseminated in FAO’s corporate database FAOSTAT, and integrated by geo-spati al data obtained from recognized international sources. Users are provided with step-by-step guidance on how to use this minimum set to build a default, yet complete national GHG emission dataset for agriculture and land use, which follows the default, Tier 1 approach of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines on National GHG Inventories. This Manual therefore contributes to FAO and the Global Strategy support to national processes towards improved agricultural and rural statistics. It can be used as a guide by staff of national statistical offices, environmental ministries and other relevant national agencies, to understand the international context of international climate policy (Ch. 2) and international guidelines (Ch. 3), identify needs for improved agricultural and rural data as well as emission estimates towards improving GHG Inventories (Ch. 4), while supplying practical information and examples based on accessing and using the FAOSTAT Emissions database for agriculture and land use (Ch. 5).