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GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

WHY DOES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS 
MATTER?

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are critically important due to their role in driving climate change and their impact on the Earth's atmosphere. Some of key concerns from GHG emissions are summarized below:

  • GHGs trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, creating a natural greenhouse effect that keeps the planet warm enough to sustain life. However, human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial processes, have increased the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. This enhanced greenhouse effect leads to global warming, resulting in rising temperatures and climate change.

  • Global Warming: The increase in average global temperatures due to elevated greenhouse gas levels can have widespread and profound effects. These include more frequent and severe heatwaves, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather events like hurricanes, droughts, and heavy rainfall.

  • Impacts on Ecosystems: Climate change disrupts ecosystems and biodiversity. Many species may struggle to adapt or migrate to more suitable habitats, leading to loss of biodiversity and potential extinction of certain species. Imbalanced ecosystems can negatively impact agriculture, food supply, and the overall stability of ecosystems on which humans and wildlife depend.

  • Sea Level Rise: As global temperatures rise, the melting of polar ice and glaciers contributes to rising sea levels. This poses a threat to low-lying coastal areas, islands, and densely populated regions, leading to increased risks of flooding, erosion, and displacement of millions of people.

  • Ocean Acidification: Some GHGs, like carbon dioxide (CO2), when absorbed by the oceans, cause the water to become more acidic. Ocean acidification can harm marine life, particularly shell-forming organisms like corals and certain plankton, which form the foundation of marine food chains.

  • Health Impacts: Climate change has direct and indirect effects on human health. Heat-related illnesses, increased air pollution, changes in disease transmission patterns, and disruptions in food and water supplies all contribute to health risks, particularly for vulnerable populations.

  • Economic Consequences: The impacts of climate change and extreme weather events have significant economic repercussions. The costs of dealing with disasters, damage to infrastructure, loss of agricultural productivity, and increased healthcare expenses will continue to strain economies and communities.

  • Social and Political Challenges: Climate change exacerbates existing social and political issues, such as resource scarcity, migration, and conflicts over access to land, water, and other essentials.

Curbing GHG emissions and protecting natural carbon sinks, such as forests and wetlands, is essential for mitigating the impacts of climate change and ensuring a sustainable and habitable planet for future generations. Countries and individuals worldwide must take action to reduce emissions through the adoption of cleaner energy sources, improved energy efficiency, sustainable land use practices, and policies that encourage responsible environmental stewardship.

WHY A NEXUS APPROACH?

Climate change is a complex and interconnected challenge that spans various sectors and disciplines. It simply cannot be addressed without a nexus approach to research and implementation.

  • Interconnected Sectors: GHG emissions originate from multiple sectors, such as energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and land use. A nexus approach recognizes that actions in one sector can have cascading effects on emissions in other sectors.

  • Trade-offs and Synergies: The nexus approach allows researchers and policymakers to identify potential trade-offs and synergies between emission reduction and active removal strategies. For instance, promoting sustainable land use practices, such as afforestation and reforestation, not only sequesters carbon dioxide but also contributes to biodiversity conservation and water management.

  • Complexity of Solutions: Climate change requires holistic solutions that consider the diverse challenges faced by different regions and communities. A nexus approach enables the integration of knowledge from various disciplines, including environmental science, social sciences, economics, and engineering, to develop comprehensive and effective strategies.

  • Policy Integration: Traditional approaches to addressing GHG emissions and active removal often involve fragmented policies and actions within specific sectors. A nexus research approach emphasizes policy integration, where multiple stakeholders collaborate to design and implement coordinated policies that tackle emissions across different sectors.

  • Sustainable Development: The nexus research approach aligns with the concept of sustainable development, which seeks to balance economic, social, and environmental priorities.

  • Resilience and Adaptation: Climate change adaptation and resilience-building are essential components of addressing emissions. The nexus approach allows researchers to explore how reducing emissions can also enhance resilience to climate impacts, helping communities prepare for and cope with changing climate conditions.

  • Global Cooperation: Climate change is a global challenge that requires collaboration among countries and regions. The nexus approach encourages international cooperation and knowledge sharing to develop context-specific solutions that can be adapted and implemented across different regions.

By adopting a nexus research approach, policymakers, researchers, and communities can better understand the complexity of GHG emissions, identify appropriate innovative solutions, and make informed decisions that contribute to effective climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

AID TOOLS

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Global Carbon Atlas

Global Carbon Atlas - A platform to explore and visualize the most up-to-date data on carbon fluxes resulting from human activities and natural processes.

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The International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) Emissions Trading System (ETS) Map

The International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) Emissions Trading System (ETS) Map provides and visualizes up-to-date information on ETSs around the world – including systems that are in force, under development and under consideration.

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Global Database of National GHG Inventory (GHGI)

This document describes the key findings, research methods, assessment results, and suggestions for future work resulting from the compilation of the Global Database of National GHG Inventory Capacity in Developing Countries. Principle to this research was the creation of two GHG inventory capacity indices, GHGI Capacity and GHGI Applied. The two indices can be used to assess the evolving capacity of developing countries to prepare national GHGIs under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

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FAOSTAT emissions

FAOSTAT emissions: Agriculture database contains all the emissions produced in the different agricultural emissions categories providing a picture of the contribution to the total amount of GHG emissions from agriculture.

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FAOSTAT emissions

FAOSTAT emissions: Land use database contains the GHG emissions and removals produced in the three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) categories, namely cropland, forest land, and grassland that are part of the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector.

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VISIONS: The EMIT Open Data Portal

This portal shows high-confidence research grade methane plumes from point source emitters - updated as they are identified - in keeping with our Open Science and Open Data policy. These results will enable user groups and the public to access the information quickly and utilize the data. This mapping effort is a prototype component of the NASA Earth Science contribution to a U.S. Government Greenhouse Gas (GHG) information system.

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Global Methane Assessment

This site displays analyses from the Global Methane Assessment: Benefits and Costs of Mitigating Methane Emissions. This Assessment is intended to support decision making regarding methane emissions by providing an in depth analysis of opportunities to reduce methane emissions from all sectors across all regions and an analysis of both the costs and the benefits to human health, crops and the economy of such reductions. 

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Global Mangrove Watch

Global Mangrove Watch is an online platform that provides the remote sensing data and tools for monitoring mangroves, which are key blue-carbon sinks.

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Global Forest Watch (GFW)

Global Forest Watch (GFW) is an online platform and initiative launched by the World Resources Institute (WRI) that provides real-time monitoring and analysis of global forest cover and forest-related data. The platform utilizes satellite imagery, remote sensing, and other data sources to track and display changes in forest cover and land use over time.

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Carbon Mapper

Carbon Mapper is a satellite-based project aimed at mapping and monitoring methane and carbon dioxide emissions from individual sources around the world. Satellite mission is not yet launched but data from the airborne campaign are available.

Get to Know AID Members

You can consult with the AID group leader or any members for your regional, national, and global datasets, tools, and analytics projects and questions.

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