Nations Under- or Don’t Report Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Jeopardizing UN Climate Goals

The greenhouse gas emissions data the world’s nations report to the United Nations climate convention are typically out of date, inconsistent, and incomplete, Fred Pearce wrote for Yale Environment 360. Therefore, compliance with agreed emissions targets cannot be verified, analysts say. However, according to the article: “Satellite data shows methane emissions from oil and gas fields globally are around 70% higher than governments claim,” and “Governments globally claim forests are soaking up 6 billion tons more CO2 each year than scientists can account for, a study found.” Uncertainties around China’s coal industry’s CO2 emissions are larger than the total emissions of many major industrial countries. In the United States, the air over oil and natural gas fields has three times more methane than the government has reported, according to a cited analysis. Qatar, a major Gulf natural-gas exporter with the world’s highest per-capita emissions, filed its last and only formal report in 2011, providing data only up to 2007, and its actual emissions are thought to have doubled since then.