Under the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement, Cambodia should ensure the development of a reliable and sustainable national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, as an essential instrument for assessing efforts to address climate change and progress made towards the Agreement’s goals.

Recently, the Ministry of Environment (MoE) and the National Council for Sustainable Development established a national sub-working group of GHG inventory aimed at facilitating national technical capacity for the preparation of more sustainable inventories and ultimately getting ready for reporting the Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) by 2024.

In order to enhance the technical capacity of government officials in estimating GHG emissions and removals from the agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and the MoE, organized a training workshop between 05 and 08 July 2022 on National GHG Inventory and IPCC software.

The training was attended by 30 participants (25 male and 5 female) from the Technical Working Group on Climate Change Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (TWG-CCAFF). Participants were experts directly or indirectly involved in GHG monitoring processes from relevant departments of MAFF and MoE and from academia. The sessions included theoretical and practical lessons covering various aspects, such as the need for and importance of a national GHG inventory, the 2006 IPCC guidelines and best practices, an introduction to the IPCC software along with suggested methods to conduct gap analyses seeking to improve the GHG inventory system. On the final day of the training an opportunity was provided to discuss the main challenges for the preparation of the GHG Inventory, particularly institutional arrangements, and propose solutions to overcome them through future capacity building. 

During the opening remarks, Mr Oum Kosal, Assistant FAO Representative Programme, stated that building capacity of core MAFF and MoE’s teams is key in order to regularly produce a GHG inventory that meets the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines’ principles. In addition, the training ultimately aims to improve the overall quality of the inventory and allow Cambodia to prepare future reports in accordance with the requirements of the ETF, particularly for the AFOLU sector. 

In closing the event, H.E. Dr Heng Chanthoeun, Deputy Director General of the General Directorate of Policy and Strategy of MoE, gave his appreciation for the organization of the training and the efforts in involving everyone and enabling them to learn how to prepare the national GHG inventory and to use the IPCC software for future reporting.

Mr Heng Lyhong, a participant from the Department of Planning and Statistics of MAFF, stated: “I appreciated this training because it will contribute to increasing capacities of key national government officials in the development of the national GHG inventory. Over four days, I have been equipped with technical know-how and a better understanding of the different steps for preparing the national GHG inventory. Furthermore, I have gained more understanding of notions and practices to assess and maintain the quality of the inventory, procedures on how to estimate GHG emissions and removals in the AFOLU sector and using the IPCC software to make me more confident in my future work.”

The training session was organized as a joint effort of the “Strengthening capacity in the agricultural and land use sectors for enhanced transparency in implementation and monitoring of Cambodia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)” project and the “Global capacity-building towards enhanced transparency in the AFOLU sector (CBIT-AFOLU)” project, both funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF).