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

The first ever authoritative overview of the vitally important task of monitoring, reporting and verifying greenhouse gas emissions at both an industry and a regional/national level. This book is written for practitioners in the private and public sectors involved in designing, implementing and reacting to climate policy regulation.

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.