Opinion: Coordinated development of emission inventories for climate forcers and air pollutants

Abstract

Emissions into the atmosphere of fine particulate matter, its precursors, and precursors to tropospheric ozone impact not only human health and ecosystems, but also the climate by altering Earth's radiative balance. Accurately quantifying these impacts across local to global scales historically and in future scenarios requires emission inventories that are accurate, transparent, complete, comparable, and consistent. In an effort to better quantify the emissions and impacts of these pollutants, also called short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is developing a new SLCF emissions methodology report. This report would supplement existing IPCC reporting guidance on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories, which are currently used by inventory compilers to fulfill national reporting requirements under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and new requirements of the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under the Paris Agreement starting in 2024. We review the relevant issues, including how air pollutant and GHG inventory activities have historically been structured, as well as potential benefits, challenges, and recommendations for coordinating GHG and air pollutant inventory efforts. We argue that, while there are potential benefits to increasing coordination between air pollutant and GHG inventory development efforts, we also caution that there are differences in appropriate methodologies and applications that must jointly be considered.