Book I: Introduction
The dimensions and criteria for transparent monitoring, as outlined in Book I, are covered on other pages of this website. In this ‘book-in-brief,’ we will focus directly on the role of transparent monitoring in the land-use sector, followed by three opportunities for using transparent monitoring to advance our understanding of land-sector emissions.
Context
The land sector plays a crucial role in both mitigating and adapting to climate change. It is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing approximately one tenth to one quarter of global human-caused emissions, primarily through deforestation, land degradation, and unsustainable land use practices.
At the same time, the sector offers immense mitigation potential by acting as a carbon sink through reforestation, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable land management. Moreover, the sector is vital for adaptation, as resilient landscapes help buffer communities against climate impacts such as extreme weather and shifting agricultural productivity.
Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems are indispensable in this context, designed to provide reliable data that are needed to track emissions, evaluate mitigation efforts, and to deliver feedback to ensure that climate policies are implemented effectively and equitably. By anchoring transparency and accountability in these processes, MRV systems enable evidence-based decision-making that aligns with global climate goals.
Transparent monitoring of climate targets and emission-reduction implementation measures is one of the core tenets of the Paris Agreement. The Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) for action and support, Article 13, was crafted to strengthen accountability among Parties and promote trust in climate targets and the actions taken to achieve them.
For this system to work, all Parties must regularly report information on GHG emissions and removals. Likewise, the quality of the information they provide matters, for example it must be comparable and complete, otherwise it is unlikely that transparency will effectively contribute to improving climate action and ambition.
Transparent monitoring approaches are not merely a technical requirement but a powerful enabler of meaningful climate action.
Persistent challenges in a golden era of data
While technological advancements such as satellite data, cloud computing, and machine learning, offer significant promise especially to countries with lack of MRV capacities, these technologies are not universally accessible. Many countries face high costs of adoption, uneven technical infrastructure, and a lack of interoperability standards. Policymakers must prioritize capacity-building initiatives that address these barriers and ensure equitable access to technology for all regions.
Strengthening inclusive participation and collaboration
Engaging communities and the private sector is vital for robust monitoring. Indigenous Peoples and local communities, with their deep knowledge of land management and deforestation drivers, are an underutilized resource. Mechanisms to integrate these actors into national monitoring frameworks remain underdeveloped but examples of successful approaches exist.
Innovative approaches, such as public-private partnerships, participatory mapping, and incentive mechanisms for sustainable practices, can bridge these gaps. Providing financial and technical support to Indigenous Peoples and local communities is critical for fostering their meaningful participation.
Three opportunities for transparent monitoring to advance our understanding of land-sector emissions
The handbook identifies three concrete opportunities for how transparent monitoring approaches can support the implementation of the ETF under the Paris Agreement and thus increase trust in data and climate action.
There is high demand for exchange between the scientific community, which has the technical skills, and the community of GHG inventory compilers, which knows the policy requirements, and engagement of each community with each other’s processes. To seize this opportunity:
- Scientists need to contribute more directly to improving GHG reporting methodologies and underlying databases
- Scientific protocols and standards need to consider requirements for reporting
- National research agendas need to address the demand for data and methodologies of the GHG inventory community.
- To address the needs of different communities, better understanding and collaboration between the scientific and GHG reporting communities is needed. This can be achieved through regular roundtables to align research agendas with reporting cycles, ensuring both scientific standards and timely improvements, while promoting continuous learning.
There are opportunities for improved quality of GHG monitoring in the land use sector associated with improved monitoring coherence and consistency between different policies. To make these improvements:
- Monitoring systems should allow for interoperability between different uses (i.e. scientific data on land-use changes is also used to access policy compliance). To do so, these systems need to include complementary data and allow for scaling to different levels of aggregation.
- Different stakeholders must collaborate more closely. One way this can be achieved is by embedding monitoring in existing institutional context and policy frameworks instead of installing new systems.
For many countries the land sector is an essential component of NDCs because they aim to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation or have established afforestation or reforestation targets. To support NDC policies and implementation, transparent monitoring approaches can lead to:
- Better and more timely data on land use change, biomass changes or the impact of natural disturbances.
- Methodological alignment between tools used for tracking changes and collecting data used in the preparation of GHG inventories, helping to reduce duplication of efforts and avoid data discrepancies.
- Improved bi-directional information flow between different levels of government and stakeholders, including Indigenous and local communities who often play key roles in forest monitoring.
Recommendations
To advance transparent monitoring in all countries and across all contexts, and beyond our case study countries, the project developed a set of broad recommendations, synthesizing lessons from the individual case studies and highlighting universally applicable strategies:
- Strengthen institutional capacities and frameworks
- Leverage technological advances
- Promote inclusive participation
- Foster private sector collaboration
- Enhance policy coherence and integration
- Secure sustainable funding
For more detailed information on each of these recommendations.