Download PDF
The United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) has published what is described as a draft interagency report titled:
Federal Strategy to Advance Greenhouse Gas Emissions Measurement and Monitoring for the Agriculture and Forest Sectors (“Report”)
The Report is described as outlining a draft framework for measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification of greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions and removals for the agriculture and forest sectors.
The Report is a companion to the draft document titled:
Federal Strategy to Advance an Integrated U.S. Greenhouse Gas Monitoring & Information System
USDA is requesting comment on the Report on behalf of the Biden Administration’s Greenhouse Gas Monitoring and Measurement Interagency Working Group, USDA’s Office of Chief Economist.
In order to improve and verify GHG estimates and provide what it describes as enhanced data products, the Report:
- Takes advantage of advanced measurement and modeling capabilities.
- Utilizes the growth of GHG observational data.
The relevance of these issues is the estimate that net agricultural emissions represent roughly 10% of U.S. GHG emissions. Further, the forest sector is described as remaining:
. . . a net sink of GHGs across the 1990-2021 time series; hence, agriculture and forests offer critical mitigation opportunities.
As a result, the Report notes that a comprehensive GHG monitoring effort will have to consider such emissions and removals from the agriculture and forest sectors to address climate change issues.
The Report is described as discussing near-term activities and projects that “address known needs and gaps in our current GHG emissions measurement and monitoring capabilities.” Further, strategic priorities for improving the measurement, quantification, and verification of GHGs within the agriculture and forest sectors are addressed.
The request for information (i.e., comments) poses questions under broad categories such as:
- General comments on questions on the strategy
- Animal agriculture
- Croplands
- Forestry
- Data and data sharing
A copy of the Report can be found here and a related document here.
