Building An Accessible and Robust Greenhouse Gas Data System to Inform and Drive Decarbonization
About the Conference
Many companies, investors, advocates, researchers & policymakers are frustrated by the lack of authoritative and accessible information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions and removals. Many of these data users see major gaps in GHG performance data at the project level, where baseline conditions and GHG fluxes need to be identified and confirmed. Gaps are particularly acute where GHG emissions have not traditionally been carefully tracked at the source/project level such as, for example, for methane pollution sources, climate-smart agricultural & forestry practices, and other nature-based climate solutions.
Even where investments are being made in measuring, monitoring, reporting, and verifying (MMRV) GHG emissions reductions and removals, many factors limit the usefulness of carbon data that are collected, including widely varying and inconsistent detection and measurement protocols/methodologies; the failure to adopt coding conventions that would make data comparable and stackable (interoperable); the failure to measure baseline conditions and changes over time; and intervening claims of privacy or business confidentiality.
A significant body of GHG data developed by many public and private entities (including government researchers) also is not available in open source formats or at the project level where GHG reductions and removals need to be accurately measured and confirmed. And where good GHG data sets do exist–such as in the power & transportation sectors–the information typically is not available in user-friendly formats that facilitate their use.
Authoritative agreements, protocols and standards are needed to address these deficiencies and build an integrated system of “bottom up” and “top down” GHG data for the benefit of all climate data users. Progress on these matters will enable verification of carbon reports and claims – a critical element for clarifying and improving corporate GHG reporting, establishing high integrity carbon markets, encouraging innovation, increasing competition, and helping investors identify new opportunities.
It is a particularly propitious time to take on this work, given the large investments that many companies, non-profits, and governmental entities are making in obtaining new and better data on GHG emission reductions and removals for methane sources, carbon dioxide removals, and other GHG use cases.
The private sector, working with universities and governmental entities, has the know-how and institutional experience to develop and pilot GHG data systems that can generate verified, accessible, and actionable GHG information through open source platform(s). This conference seeks to advance such a private sector effort.
Join Stanford scholars and industry and government experts for a full-day conference to examine the current GHG data landscape, explore the key components for a potential climate/GHG data “system,” and identify opportunities to develop more accessible, interoperable,“bottom up” GHG data sets that track GHG reductions and removals at the source level.
This conference is co-sponsored by SLS’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy Program, CodeX Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, the Doerr School for Sustainability, and the Data Foundation, a non-profit organization.