From Theory to Action – Agriculture’s call to implement MRV for accurate climate reporting

• The agricultural sector contributes significantly to global GHG emissions. Accurate monitoring and mitigation of these emissions are critical for reducing the sector's carbon footprint.
• There are significant challenges in implementing Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems, including a lack of farm-level data, technical capacity, and common methodologies.
• Progressing from Tier 1 to Tier 3 MRV systems for GHG reporting is gaining attention, where locally sourced data allows for the highest accuracy in emission estimates. Concerns prevail about the costs and past adjusting emission data interpretations.

Bangkok, Thailand - 24 October 2024: In today's world, we measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the production of clothing, automobiles, and especially energy. When we engage in the topics of sustainability along the consumption chain of any commodity, nowadays there is no escape from thinking about our carbon footprint. Our economic activities either directly or indirectly produce emissions that fuel not only our engines but also our everyday commodities. It has been long known and debated that livestock farming produces GHG, such as in particular the exponentially potent gas of methane, and that measures need to be taken to reduce its carbon footprint. But this is old news nowadays and while being fully acknowledged and accounted for, livestock is not the only component of the food producing sector that is having an impact on emissions.

The crops we grow also produce greenhouse gases due to microbial processes in the soil and evaporating fertilizers of which we tend to apply too much too often. In fact, 31% of emissions globally are attributable to the agricultural sector. And within those 31% global emissions share, rice production contributes between 8% and 14% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally and annually, depending on the extent to which rice is cultivated and in relation to other annual greenhouse gas emitters. Methane is again the dominating gas which equates to 28 times the effect the same amount of carbon dioxide would have over a period of 100 years.

It is for that reason that the agricultural sector has received heightened attention at the UNFCCC's climate summits to take measures that reduce emissions not just among livestock. However, when it comes to a holistic view on the emissions from our food production chains, we are confronted with information shortages.

This week from 21 to 23 October 2024, the International Rice Research Institute has taken part in the Climate Transparency in Agrifood System: Understanding MRVs and COP29 workshop aimed at policymakers from Asia-Pacific. The meeting convened Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV), climate change, and agricultural experts to discuss the concurrent challenges in greenhouse gas measurement and mitigation solutions and to synthetize national and regional submissions that are to determine the agenda points relevant for Asia-Pacific countries at the upcoming 29th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (UNFCCC COP29) this November 2024.

During the discussions, the absence of not only relevant but also verified data at the farm level was an acknowledged challenge that needs to be tackled in order to get a full picture of the produced emissions, and subsequently be able to take measures where they are most needed. The concern was lamented by both sides of the development parties from international partners and their consulting experts as well as the government officials.

The associated financing for improved and expanded data collections is a commonly acknowledged concern. However, the challenges begin much earlier than at the costing stage and encompass first and foremost finding common methodologies that specify the kind of data to collect, the means with which to collect them, and the policy-specified national responsibilities for this endeavor. Therein, the challenges further entail shortages in technical capacities among national staff to collect, process, and verify procedures and information, and technological aspects of creating management information systems that handle the data for analysis and reporting purposes.

With those challenges in mind, guidelines by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) for Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) of GHG emissions at three different tiers were presented that currently serve to facilitate the national GHG estimation process. To date, most countries worldwide orient on the Tier 1 utilizing large-scale, modelled data while some countries also apply Tier 2 data derived from locally observed farm activities. The goal shall be to achieve applying Tier 3, encompassing local activity data and locally sourced GHG emissions factors, or actual activity-specific local carbon emissions data which would allow for the highest accuracy in estimating national emissions in agriculture. Japan presented to be one of the few countries being able to employ Tier 3-level data.

However, changing to higher tiers was flagged by national representatives to unduly increase emission levels in consequence of changing the methodology and thereby skewing mitigation results of countries which to date have not been able to implement field-level data collections. In essence, the discussions exhibited that uncertainty prevails in capturing emissions from a mathematical and methodological perspective. Nevertheless, international experts rectified that applying at least Tier 2 would allow countries to understand their emissions more accurately, which would have further benefits for participating in the international carbon credits market.

[Link]Bjoern Ole Sander, IRRI Thailand Country Lead, presenting on MRV systems

MRV is stated to have originated at the COP 13 in 2007 in the sense that it became necessary to document measurable mitigation actions and thus allow effective tracking of greenhouse gas production and reduction. How to capture more accurate data with an MRV system is where Bjoern Ole Sander from the International Rice Research Institute was able to provide insights on tried-and-tested methodologies for monitoring, reporting and verification as developed in collaboration with the Department of Crop Production and implemented in Viet Nam. The presented information showcased how GHG emissions can be captured in the field and how the reporting tools are used to report on GHG estimations in Viet Nam.

Nevertheless, and as already mentioned, one should not underestimate the cost of any MRV system as not only the cost for the technology itself must be burdened but the cost of the involved personnel on the ground, which includes trainings of equipment operators and data collectors required for every province where - as in this case - rice cultivation takes place.

[Link]Example of measuring technique in the field: Above - The base casing (blue) is fixated in the ground with a collection chamber (white) placed on top and directly connected to the analyzer; Below - From the collection chamber, gas is extracted with a syringe and analyzed via a gas chromatography meter.

As was highlighted during the meeting, we are still a long way afar from reaching the goal of the Paris Agreement to keep Earth's average temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius. We are experiencing temperature increases impacting on biospheres and therein water availabilities at extreme rates, ranging between severe droughts to severe floods even within the same countries. Not tackling the temperature increases by reducing our carbon and equivalent emissions will have and already has impacts on our food securities.

As countries are on their way to strengthen their Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, robust MRV systems that allow for improved and comparable information collection on our emissions are an inevitable way forward - and the representatives at the meeting from ranging from Cambodia to Sri Lanka or Japan are aware. Making the implementation feasible with common methodological guidance frameworks and stemming the financing burden are very likely next on the discussion agendas in the very near future. IRRI will be there.

The event has been held by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in collaboration with UNFCCC and IRRI, funding and organizational support by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan, as well as execution support by diverse international organizations, private sector representatives, and individual specialists in the fields of climate change and agriculture.

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