Verification and accreditation schemes for climate change activities: A review of requirements for verification of greenhouse gas reductions and accreditation of verifiers—Implications for long-term carbon sequestration
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a review of existing national and international requirements for verification of greenhouse gas reductions and associated accreditation of independent verifiers. The credibility of results claimed to reduce or remove anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) is of utmost importance for the success of emerging schemes to reduce such emissions. Requirements include transparency, accuracy, consistency, and completeness of the data. The many independent verification processes that have developed recently now make up a quite elaborate tool kit for best practices. The UN Framework Convention for Climate Change and the Kyoto specifications for project mechanisms initiated this work, but other national and international actors also work intensely with these issues. One initiative gaining wide application is that taken by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development with the World Resources Institute to develop a GHG Protocol to assist companies in arranging for auditable monitoring and reporting processes of their activities. A set of new international standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) provides specifications for the quantification, monitoring, and reporting of company entity and project-based activities. The ISO is also developing specifications for recognizing independent verifiers. This chapter covers this background with intent of providing a common understanding of all efforts undertaken in different parts of the world to secure the reliability of emission reduction and removal activities. These verification schemes may provide valuable input to current efforts of securing a comprehensive, trustworthy, and robust framework for verification activities of CO, capture, transport, and storage.