Tracking greenhouse emissions - Climate Change...
Transcript of Tracking greenhouse emissions - Climate Change...
Tracking greenhouse
emissionsThe science, challenges and opportunities
Rob Sturgiss,
Assistant Secretary, National Inventory Systems Branch DoEE
Talk outline
1. Why the inventory matters 2. Stakeholders that care
3. New technologies – new directions?
4. Building institutions for user confidence
5. The role for science
6. Inventories and the Paris Agreement
Snapshot of the Australian inventory (2005) & direction of change since 2005
Fuel
combustion
– coal
33%
Fuel
combustion
- gas
9%
Fuel combustion - oil
19%
Fugitive
emissions
– energy
6%
Industrial
processes
5%
Waste
2%
Agricultur
e
13%
Land
13%
72%
5%
21%
2% 0% 0%
Methane
Carbon
dioxideNitrous
oxide
HFCsPFCs
and SF6
Talk outline
1. Why the inventory matters
2. Stakeholders that care 3. New technologies – new directions?
4. Building institutions for user confidence
5. The role for science
6. Inventories and the Paris Agreement
Some inventory stakeholders can be
sceptical…
‘disgraceful’
‘dodgy’
‘not worth the paper they are printed on’
‘cooking the books’
‘liars’
…shooting the messenger..
…. inventory and climate science
challenges are interconnected
Source: IPCC AR5
Technical estimation issues relevant for climate science as well as for inventories
Cape Grim, CSIRO
Inventories are a feature of climate change treaties
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992)
Commitments (Article 4.1 (a)):
Develop, periodically update, publish and make available to the Conference of Parties national inventories of anthropogenic emissions and removals
Kyoto Protocol (1997)
Paris Agreement (2015)
All place systems for monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse
emissions at the heart of the treaty
Managing incentives for free-riding by building institutions with
checks and balances
Inventory reporting central to
international co-operation
The Paris Agreement Global Stocktake connects science, negotiators and inventories
Talk outline
1. Why the inventory matters
2. Stakeholders that care
3. New technologies – new directions? 4. Building institutions for user confidence
5. The role for science
6. Inventories and the Paris Agreement
https://phys.org/news/2016-12-china-carbon-dioxide-satellite.html#jCp
Space agencies developing global GHG monitoring systems –
for science and for UN negotiators? ….and inventories?
China state media .. new satellite would give them a ‘louder voice in future carbon reduction negotiations’
NASA’s ‘top down’ view – spatial mapping of
CO2 concentrations
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82142
1-31 May 2013
CO2
monitoring
systems
measure
concentrations
not emissions
Stronger concentrations in lighter coloursCape Grim
Intense CO2
concentrations overNth America, Europe, East Asia, West Africa.
A second ‘top down’ view … working with NASA data
Intense CO2
concentrations overEast Asia; Nth America, Europe; West Africa and the Amazon. Average concentrations over a whole year 2014/15
Derived from https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov/#mission=OCO-2
A second ‘top down’ view … working with NASA data
Intense CO2
concentrations overEast Asia; Nth America, Europe; West Africa and the Amazon. Average concentrations over a whole year 2014/15
Derived from https://co2.jpl.nasa.gov/#mission=OCO-2
Australia’s
national
greenhouse
gas inventory
National Inventory – uses ‘bottom up’
approaches
An example: Carbon dioxide emissions estimates
National statistics on activity data
like national fuel consumption statistics
Characterise fuels by carbon content
Measured or assumed carbon content of fuels
IPCC methods – assume complete oxidation of the fuel
Accounting / classification systems
Science, models & measurements
Purpose built software (AGEIS)
National Energy Statistics (DoEE)
National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER)
Scheme data (CER)
Agricultural and Transport Statistics (ABS)
DoEE remote sensing & FullCAM land sector carbon models
Supported by GeoScience Australia, CSIRO Data61,
CSIRO Land & Water, ANU and other academic
institutions
DoEE partners with science bodies and uses
public national data
EF = 0.94ME = 0 t/haRMSE = 62Lin’s = 0.97
FullCAM biomass layer
t dm/ha
DoEE - using ‘big data’ to estimate land sector emissions
FullCAM upgrade:
New biomass and
ecosystem dynamics
research by CSIRO’s
Steve Roxburgh and
Keryn Paul
implemented 2017
‘Big Data’
DoEE is the biggest
user of
GeoScience
Australia’s
datacube (soon
to become Digital
Earth Australia)
Images are
processed using
CSIRO Data61
land cover
algorithms
Biomass and carbon estimated using FullCAM
Landsat images
are verified using
high-res images
like google earth
and digital globe
Talk outline
1. Why the inventory matters
2. Stakeholders that care
3. New technologies – new directions?
4. Building institutions for user confidence 5. The role for science
6. Inventories and the Paris Agreement
1. International treaty rules and institutions
Submission of annual inventories of anthropogenic emissions
Estimation - mandatory use of IPCC guidelines for preparation of national inventories
Review - annual expert review processes
Penalties for non-compliance (KP)
IPCC guidelines provide an estimation framework which constrains inventory compilers
2. Integration with mature, domestic
measurement systems
National Greenhouse Accounting framework
Estimation methods used for companies, projects must be consistent with national inventory methods
National Measurement Act a tonne is a tonne……
Commercial standards ISO, Australian standards, international standards - for energy & carbon contents etc
Taxation systems Excise tax system for petroleum classifications
Companies estimating emissions under NGERs make use of existing legislative instruments, standards and compliance systems where possible
3. Reviews, audit and scrutiny
UNFCCC expert reviews to test compliance with international rules
50 page report every year for each of the last 14 years
http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/inventory_review_reports/items/2767.php
ANAO performance audit
Performance audits completed in 2010, 2017
5000 data points tested – 0.1% correction over time series… not material….
https://www.anao.gov.au/work/performance-audit/accounting-reporting-australias-greenhouse-gas-emissions-estimates
ParliamentaryThe data are heavily
scrutinised in formal processes
4. Governance and transparency
National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Committee
(States and Territories)
Multiple audiences
National Greenhouse Accounts
National Greenhouse Gas Inventory – using IPCC classifications
State and Territory inventories
National Inventory by economic sector – using ANZSIC classifications
Quarterly Updates – timely release of preliminary estimates
Australian Greenhouse Emissions Information System database
http://ageis.climatechange.gov.au/
Additional accounts expose
estimates to greater numbers of
users & greater scrutiny
Transparency is very high
Contributions to other
releases
State of the Forests
State of the Environment
System of Environmental Accounts
Protecting carbon reservoirs is a UNFCCC treaty objective
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19901992199419961998200020022004200620082010201220142016
Australia: land carbon stocks
5. Independent data sets & multiple lines of evidence
DoEE and Qld DSITI agree within 10% on average for ‘forest’ clearing’
Example of Queensland ‘land’ clearing
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DoEE forest clearing Qld DSITI vegetation clearing
DoEE includes additional sub-forest losses within another classification: ‘grazing management’
Gridded sample of DoEE estimates verified using high resolution images
Queensland forest vegetation changes(kha)
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Primary forest conversion Secondary forest re-clearing
Most forest clearing is low-biomass secondary forest re-clearing for pasture maintenance
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Secondary forest re-clearing Secondary forest - new
Secondary forests are now appearing faster than they are being cleared - by 150,000 ha in 2015
Talk outline
1. Why the inventory matters
2. Stakeholders that care
3. New technologies – new directions?
4. Building institutions for user confidence
5. The role for science 6. Inventories and the Paris Agreement
Hydrofluorocarbons – reconciling Australian
inventory and atmospheric measurements
Australian HFC emissions calculated from Cape Grim observations and in the Inventory (NGGI/NGA, ageis.climatechange.gov.au).
Diverging
trends –
Australian
inventory
over-
estimating in
recent years
New Australian
methods will calibrate
leakage rates to
atmospheric
measurements
HFCs
account
for ~2% of
GHG
emissions
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2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Gg
CO
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Inverse modelling requires an
understanding of air flows in
order to attribute changed
concentrations at Cape Grim
to a particular source
Perfluorocarbons – reconciling global aggregation of
inventories and atmospheric measurements
Diverging trends –inventories under-estimating implied emissions determined from changing atmospheric concentrations
New IPCC guidelines will expand methods for emissions from aluminium to help correct divergence
PFCs are a synthetic gas; completely
anthropogenic and accountable
PFCs
account
for <1% of
global
GHG
emissions
Methane – science contributes to inventory updates
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Day et el CSIRO 2014kg/hour
CSIRO research and US studies form basis for new Australian inventory methods
Recent US empirical studies on methane:
room for interpretation?MEI DoEE
Turner et al 2016
Harvard Univ.
..a 30% increase in U.S. emissions is indicated
over the past decade during a time when
emission inventories indicate no change.
US EPA estimate for oil and gas fugitive emissions,
at 8.8 Tg/ yr, is consistent with the range estimated
by Turner et al of 8.8-13.2 Tg / yr.
Peischl, et al 2015
Univ.of Colorado
..loss rates for the Haynesville Fayetteville,
and NE Marcellus shales ..0.2 to 2.8%.
This [average] rate is similar to a 1.0% loss rate
derived from the 2012 EPA GHG emissions
inventory for natural gas systems
Pétron, Karion et
al 2014
.. losses of methane estimated to be 2 to 8% of production in the Denver--‐Julesburg Basin
(Colorado).
The three top-down emission ..give a rather large
range of potential emissions
Miller et al 2013 Miller’s estimated average methane
emissions range for the industry could be put
at 7.0 to 10.8 Tg a year for 2007 and 2008.
The US EPA estimate, at 7.6 Tg a year, is consistent
with Miller’s estimates.
Karion et al 2015 Karion et al 2015 found losses of 1.3−1.9% of
total methane from oil/gas systems in the
Barnett shale region of Texas.
This estimate agrees with the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)
Karion,et al.
(2013)
Airborne methane measurements point to 6 -‐12% emission rate in the Uintah Basin,
This study..illustrates the need for further
measurements to determine the
representativeness of our single-day estimate...
Schneising, et al.
(2014), Univ. of
Bremen,
Current inventories underestimate methane
Emissions from Bakken and Eagle Ford
found to be 10% and 9% of production.
Estimates for the Marcellus region were
considered unreliable and not reported.
Allen (2014), Univ.
Of Texas
inventories underestimate the amount of
methane entering the atmosphere.
For well completion flowbacks..emissions ranged
from 0.01 Mg to 17 Mg compared with an
average of 81 Mg per event in the EPA.
Black =
quotes
Purple=deriv
ed
DoEE view:
High
confidence
that
empirical
data
consistent
with US EPA
inventory
DoEE recalculations in 2017 to estimates of
fugitive (leaks) emissions from gas: Australia
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2017 inventory
2016 inventory
2017: new
methods
introduced for
leakages from
wellheads,
fracking,
gathering,
processing,
LNG – aligning
with US EPA
and CSIRO
research
Well
completions
(incl
fracking)
4%Production:
Onshore
wells
0.3%Production:
Water
Production
11%
Production:
Onshore
Gathering
and
Boosting
11%
Processing:
leakage
4%
Production
and
Processing:
Flaring
31%
Production
and
Processing:
Venting
19%
Transmission
and Storage
6%
Distribution
14%
Carbon dioxide: NASA’s view - land matters
Intense concentrations over the Amazon, Sthn Africa, East AsiaNth America.
Concentrations for a short season: 6 weeks in Southern Hemisphere spring..NASA https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/19dec_oco/
Talk outline
1. Why the inventory matters
2. Stakeholders that care
3. New technologies – new directions?
4. Building institutions for user confidence
5. The role for science
6. Inventories and the Paris Agreement
Paris Agreement and future challenges
The Australian inventory is underpinned by many institutional
checks and balances
Strong linkages exist between inventory compilers, climate
scientists and international negotiation processes
Improvements in the pipeline as technology changes, new
science emerges and as IPCC rules update
Inventory systems designed to underpin behavioural change
Australian inventory experience is highly valued in the region