Greenhouse gas inventory

Greenhouse gas inventories are a type of emission inventory that are developed for a variety of reasons. Scientists use inventories of natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions as tools when developing atmospheric models. Policy makers use inventories to develop strategies and policies for emissions reductions and to track the progress of those policies. And, regulatory agencies and corporations rely on inventories to establish compliance records with allowable emission rates. Businesses, the public, and other interest groups use inventories to better understand the sources and trends in emissions.

Unlike some other air emission inventories, greenhouse gas inventories include not only emissions from source categories, but also removals by carbon sinks. These removals are typically referred to as carbon sequestration.

Greenhouse gas inventories, typically use Global warming potential (GWP) values to combine emissions of various greenhouse gases into a single weighted value of emissions.

Some of the key examples of greenhouse gas inventories include:

The ISO 14064 standards (published in 2006 and early 2007) are the most recent additions to the ISO 14000 series of international standards for environmental management. The ISO 14064 standards provide governments, businesses, regions and other organisations with an integrated set of tools for programs aimed at measuring, quantifying and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These standards allow organisations take part in emissions trading schemes using a globally recognised standard.

The Local Government Operations Protocol (LGOP) is a tool for accounting and reporting greenhouse gas emissions across a local government’s operations. Adopted by the California Air Resources Board (ARB) in September 2008 for local governments to develop and report consistent GHG inventories to help meet California’s AB 32 GHG reduction obligations, it was developed in partnership with California Climate Action Registry, The Climate Registry,ICLEI and dozens of stakeholders.

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