The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finalized their Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report during the Panel’s 58th Session held in Interlaken, Switzerland from 13 – 19 March 2023. The highlights of this synthesis are published in this insightful article by the World Resources Institute (WRI).
The IPCC report emphasizes the devastating consequences of rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions around the world such as more homes being destroyed, livelihoods at risk and communities facing fragmentation. The report also mentions the increasingly dangerous and irreversible risks we would collectively face if we fail to work on remediation measures on essentially a war footing. Alongside the risks, it also offers a ray of hope, highlighting pathways that help address the global climate crisis. According to the IPCC report there are some readily available and cost-effective actions to reduce GHG emissions, accelerate carbon removal and build resilient communities. While the time window to address the global climate crisis is fast approaching its limit, the IPCC also indicates that a safe and livable future is still within our means.
Keeping global warming to less than the generally accepted goal of 1.5 degrees C (or 2.7 degrees F) with no or limited overshoot, will require deep reductions in global GHG emissions. In pathways modeled to limit global warming to this goal, GHG emissions are predicted to peak before 2025 at the latest, and then drop rapidly, declining 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035, relative to 2019. In this scenario, transparency in accounting, tracking and reporting GHG emissions is of paramount importance.
The GHG Protocol establishes comprehensive global standardized frameworks, tools and resources to measure and manage GHG emissions from private and public sector operations and proposes mitigation actions. It is currently the world’s most widely used GHG accounting standard for measuring and managing GHG emissions. Developed in 1998 by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the GHG Protocol provides a standardized methodology for businesses, governments, and other organizations to measure and report their GHG emissions, as well as their efforts to reduce or offset those emissions. Over 92% of Fortune 500 companies currently use this GHG Protocol accounting framework which are divided into two categories – the Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard and the Project Accounting Standard.
The Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard is utilized to measure and report general GHG emissions from operations, such as how much energy they use from burning fossil fuels, their transportation data, and waste. The Project Accounting Standard is for measurement and reporting of GHG emissions and reductions in specific projects such as the use of renewable energy, reforestation programs and other remediation steps.
To better understand the challenges of users with implementing their standards, the GHG Protocol launched a set of surveys on its Corporate Accounting Reporting Standard, Scope 2 Guidance, Scope 3 Standard and Scope 3 Calculation Guidance in November 2022. Data from these surveys will inform future revisions to the existing standards, and determine the next two years of work in the GHG Protocol. By gathering data on users’ pain points, and applying users’ suggestions for revisions, the GHG Protocol is working to improve the experience of practitioners on the field.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has announced that the GHG Protocol has been awarded a grant of USD $9.25 million from the Bezos Earth Fund. The partnership between the World Resources Institute and WBCSD will allow upgrades to the GHG Protocol including further clarification its existing benchmarks. The goals include creating more specific GHG measurement standards to assist businesses in their remediation efforts
Dr Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, has noted that the global demand for GHG accounting and reporting is steadily increasing. This has created an urgency to scale and modernize the system in order to ensure the needed standards, tools and training. Assuring the reliability of these systems is crucial to their successful adoption.
It is clear that a common set of definitions and measurements are absolutely required to make sustained progress in critical emission reduction goals. The GHG Protocol has played a foundational role for over 2 decades in the ecosystem of GHG accounting and reporting, and has underpinned almost every other corporate GHG reporting program. Ani Dasgupta, President & CEO of World Resources Institute, said this generous support from the Bezos Earth Fund comes at a critical inflection point as the GHG Protocol updates its standards and guidance, by supporting the many thousands of businesses looking to make credible progress on climate commitments. Dominic Waughray, Executive Vice President at the WBCSD, has emphasized that businesses plays a critical role in accelerating decarbonization and that high integrity standards which are aligned with the latest climate science and that also reflect user needs are key to enable targeted action, measure progress, and create accountability.
According to the IPCC synthesis report, adaptation measures are effective in building climate-resilience, however more funds are needed to scale solutions. They estimate that overall climate finance will need to increase between 3 and 6 times over current levels by 2030 to achieve global mitigation goals. The Bezos Earth Fund supporting the GHG Protocol revisions are a good first step toward a resilient future by providing a common framework, language, methodology and benchmark for comparing emissions across different organizations and sectors.