Accounting for Carbon
Monitoring, Reporting and Verifying Emissions in the Climate Economy

An authoritative overview of the requirements and costs of monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions from industry to regional and national levels.

Valentin Bellassen (Edited by), Nicolas Stephan (Edited by)

9781009243216, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2022

562 pages, 42 b/w illus. 1 map 76 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.747 kg

'The GHG monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system provides a foundation for development and implementation of any climate policy. This book provides excellent examples on how MRV have been implemented by countries at both program and project level. Countries may have different priorities and preferences in choosing a suitable policy instrument, e.g. emissions trading or carbon tax for pricing carbon. However, MRV accounting is an essential part of the 'no-regrets' approach to climate change, regardless of the choice of the instrument.' Xueman Wang, Team Leader, Partnership for Market Readiness, Climate and Carbon Finance, Climate Change Group, The World Bank Group

The ability to accurately monitor, record, report and verify greenhouse gas emissions is the cornerstone of any effective policy to mitigate climate change. Accounting for Carbon provides the first authoritative overview of the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of emissions from the industrial site, project and company level to the regional and national level. It describes the MRV procedures in place in more than fifteen of the most important policy frameworks - such as emissions trading systems in Europe, Australia, California and China, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - and compares them along key criteria such as scope, cost, uncertainty and flexibility. This book draws on the work of engineers and economists to provide a practical guide to help government and non-governmental policymakers and key stakeholders in industry to better understand different MRV requirements, the key trade-offs faced by regulators and the choices made by up-and-running carbon pricing initiatives.

Acknowledgements
1. Introduction: key notions and trade-offs involved in MRVing emissions Valentin Bellassen and Ian Cochran
Part I. MRV of Territorial/Jurisdictional Emissions: 2. Trend setter for territorial schemes: national GHG inventories under the UNFCCC Jean-Pierre Chang and Valentin Bellassen
3. Variant n°1: region/city geographical inventories Ian Cochran
4. Variant n°2: sectoral MRV at the jurisdictional level - forestry (REDD+) in the VCS and the UNFCCC Mariana Deheza and Valentin Bellassen
Part II. MRV of Industrial Sites and Entities: 5. Trend setter for companies and industrial sites: the EU Emissions Trading Scheme Guillaume Jacquier and Valentin Bellassen
6. Variant n°1: the waste sector in Australia's carbon pricing mechanism, another ETS at site level Marion Afriat and Emilie Alberola
7. Variant n°2: non-site level emissions in an ETS - the case of electricity importers in the California cap-and-trade Marion Afriat and Emilie Alberola
8. Variant n°3: emissions of a company/institution rather than a site: the case of the Shenzhen ETS Caspar Chiquet
9. Variant n°4: coexistence of voluntary and mandatory frameworks at the company level: Carbon Disclosure Project, EU ETS and French legal requirements Romain Morel and Ian Cochran
10. Direct measurement in the EU ETS Chris Dimopoulos
Part III. MRV at Offset Project Scale: 11. Trend setter for projects: the Clean Development Mechanism Igor Shishlov
12. Case study n°1: monitoring requirements for projects reducing N2O emissions from fertilizer use across standards Claudine Foucherot
13. Case study n°2: monitoring requirements for reforestation and improved forest management projects across standards Mariana Deheza
14. Case study n°3: monitoring requirements for fugitive emissions from fuels in the CDM Alexandra Barker and Rod Robinson
15. Synthesis Valentin Bellassen, Nicolas Stephan, Marion Afriat, Emilie Alberola, Alexander Barker, Jean-Pierre Chang, Caspar Chiquet, Ian Cochran, Mariana Deheza, Chris Dimopoulos, Claudine Foucherot, Guillaume Jacquier, Romain Morel, Rod Robinson and Igor Shishlov
Index.

Subject Areas: Environmental economics [KCN], Economics [KC]