Elements

Current limitations and challenges

Best practice application

Current limitations and challenges:

• Incomplete or absent documentation on methods, datasets and assumptions
• Varying definitions

Best practice application:

• Data sources, definitions, methodologies and assumptions are clearly described
• Replication and assessment are facilitated
• Limits of their applicability know

Current limitations and challenges:

• Large or fully missing uncertainty data for land use activities (emissions, AD, EF).
• Nationally incomparable estimates due to different methods and definitions (and poor documentation).
• Methods and datasets can change over time (not always well documented)

Best practice application:

• Provides information that is accurate, reliable and customizable
• Allows for the assessment of differences in estimating, allocating and reporting GHG emissions
• Promotes the use of similar methods and datasets along time

Current limitations and challenges:

• Lack of consistency and completeness from different inventory approaches and methods
• Forest and land use categories are defined differently by different stakeholders
• Temporal inconsistency due to changing data sources, methods and monitoring objectives

Best practice application:

• Monitoring framework is able to accommodate technological developments and evolving policy objectives in estimation and reporting
• This includes reprocessing of historical estimates as appropriate

Current limitations and challenges:

• Many different independent datasets exist without comparative analysis nor good practice advice on how to use them in an interoperable way
• Different stakeholders produce their own data for their purposes

Best practice application:

• Considerations and needs of multiple stakeholders/users are considered from the beginning and datasets provide flexibility to respond to different needs

Current limitations and challenges:

• Not enough understanding on how to use/integrate/compare complementary data and methods
• Multi-scale (nesting) approaches difficult by methodological inconsistencies

Best practice application:

• It expands/complements/ integrates/ improves ongoing monitoring systems
• It provides data that can serve the purpose of national independent verification by UNFCCC
• Flexible to accommodate a diversity of spatial and temporal scales

Current limitations and challenges:

• There are gaps in data and capacities particularly in the tropics

Best practice application:

• It expands/complements/ integrates/ improves existing datasets and capacities

Current limitations and challenges:

• Ease of data access is scale dependent (e.g. global datasets easier to publicly access) with national and local scales harder to access freely and openly
• New methodologies and datasets can lead to national confusion
• Unintuitive data portals limit access and usability to non-technical stakeholder
• Technical/human capacity limitations
• Legitimacy not always recognized

Best practice application:

• Publicly available data, tools or methods with detailed documentation on data processing and creation
• Provides information that is potentially serving as authoritative reference for many kinds of stakeholder needs
• Legitimacy with stakeholders and ease of access

Current limitations and challenges:

• Monitoring progress is often driven and assessed by technological developments

Best practice application:

• All relevant stakeholders (i.e. those involved in achieving land use sector mitigation) are involved
• Regularly informed and contribute to the monitoring and reporting process

Current limitations and challenges:

• Poor quality data, low capacity and confusion over numbers often impede accountability
• Societal implications of monitoring are often not considered

Best practice application:

• Different land use sector mitigation stakeholders are and can be made accountable for their activities and actions