This book describes guidelines prepared by the U.S. Country Studies Program for the evaluation of options to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. Country Studies Program developed these guidelines in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to provide developing countries and countries with economies in transition with reference materials for national mitigation assessments. Over 50 countries participating in the program have used the guidelines, which have been refined to reflect their comments. The guidelines delineate a step-wise methodology for evaluating greenhouse gas mitigation options for the energy and non-energy sectors and describe the applications of common analytical tools. The U.S. Country Studies Program uses these guidelines in conjunction with intensive training workshops and follow up technical assistance during the lifetime of each country's study. The program uses similar reference materials to assist counties with their greenhouse gas emission inventories and evaluations of climate change vulnerability and adaptive responses. These guidelines serve three purposes: to assist countries in making decisions about the scope and methodology for mitigation assessments; to provide countries with guidance and step-by-step instructions on each element of a mitigation assessment; and to help countries determine which analytical tools are best suited to their needs and describe procedures for applying these tools. This book describes the application of the most common and readily available methods and analytical tools. Countries are encouraged, where appropriate, to use their own methods.
Among global environmental issues, climate change has received the largest attention of national and global policy makers, researchers, industry, multilateral banks and NGOs. Climate change is one of the most important global environmental problems with unique characteristics. It is global, long-term (up to several centuries) and involves complex interactions between climatic, environmental, economic, political, institutional and technological pressures. It is of great significance to developing countries as all the available knowledge suggests that they, and particularly their poorer inhabitants, are highly vulnerable to climate impacts. The projected warming of 1. 4 to 5. 8° C by 2100 and the related changes in rainfall pattern, rise in sea-level and increased frequency of extreme events (such as drought, hurricanes and storms) are likely to threaten food security, increase fresh water scarcity, lead to decline in biodiversity, increase occurrence of vector-borne diseases, cause flooding of coastal settlements, etc. Recognizing the potential threat of severe disruptions, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was organized in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to begin to address ways to reduce these impacts, which led to the formulation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. This Convention and the subsequent Kyoto Protocol recognize “the common but differentiated responsibility” of developing and industrialized countries in addressing climate change. Developing countries thus have a unique role to play in formulating a sound, reasoned, and well informed response to the threat of climate change.
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