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Monitoring and Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Potential in Agriculture 

Countries regularly report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all sectors to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including emissions from agriculture, forestry and other land use changes (AFOLU). While developed countries publish detailed emissions accounts every year, many developing countries and especially least-developed countries lack the capacity to assess and report their emission levels, especially for their agricultural sectors. As a result, only a few developing countries have been able to submit GHG emission reports since 1990. In general:

• There is lack of information on GHG emission levels and trends in AFOLU. While fossil fuel emissions from the energy sector are published yearly by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for all countries, no international agency collects and reports such data regularly for AFOLU.
• Developing countries—where agriculture forestry and other land uses represent a key component of national economies and a driver for development—have limited capacity to report their GHG data and, as a consequence, not enough visibility in the climate policy debate, limiting their access to climate finance. They will nonetheless need to report their GHG emissions at two-year intervals, starting in 2014.  

FAO has significant potential to fill this information gap. First, through its access to long-term, internationally accepted global data on agricultural activities, FAO is uniquely positioned to develop a coherent GHG database for all AFOLU sectors by country. Second, FAO can act as an impartial institution and honest broker in assessing GHG emissions data, providing its country members with a quality control and quality assurance mechanism in support of national inventory reporting. Third, through the new database FAO can help identify climate responses that are consistent with key rural development objectives of its member countries, supporting actions that ensure food security while preserving natural resources, increasing resilience and creating new employment opportunities.

To this end, while the FAOSTAT GHG database is not a replacement for UNFCCC reporting requirements, it can provide significant support to FAO member countries along four key dimensions:

1. providing regular updates of global and regional trends in GHG emissions from AFOLU;
2. bridging gaps in capacity of member countries in assessing and reporting GHG emissions, considering new requirements under the Durban accords;
3. establishing a GHG emission benchmark for quality control and quality assurance; and
4. providing a coherent framework for national-level analysis and dialogue on GHG assessment and gaps.

Donors

The Monitoring and Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Potential in Agriculture (MAGHG) project is financially supported by Germany and Norway.