Greenhouse Gas Measurement and Management: why do we need this journal?

Abstract

Welcome to the first issue of a new scientific journal: Greenhouse Gas Measurement and Management (GHGMM). GHGMM is a scholarly peer-reviewed journal that aims to provide reliable and up-to-date research and information on a broad range of issues relating to greenhouse gases (GHGs) to the growing community of professionals dealing with climate change. As such it offers a new forum for exchange of data, knowledge and understanding, which will help the work of the global community towards a ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’ (article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The only feasible way to stabilize GHG concentrations is managing the (anthropogenic) emissions, no matter what this stabilized level of concentrations would be. And, as the old saying goes, ‘you cannot manage what you do not measure’. Adequate measurement of GHGs and their emissions is therefore a prerequisite to managing them. The title of this journal covers this field. The introduction of emission reduction targets and of flexible mechanisms, allowing for emissions trading between countries and between companies, leads to an increasing need for further developing and sharing the type of knowledge and understanding the journal will publish. Emission estimates play a pivotal role in the development and implementation of climate change policies and mitigation measures. In this a distinction must be made between the policy development and the policy implementation stages. In the former, the understanding of emissions needs to be as close as possible to the ‘real world’ to ensure that policies are developed that effectively tackle the problems they are aiming at. In the latter, the understanding of the emissions data needs to be such that legal compliance checking is unambiguous and predictable to ensure that actors can be confident of the outcomes of decisions they make. This goes beyond the arithmetic of accounting for carbon atoms and clearly relates to legal, economic and behavioural aspects, making the field of measurement and management of GHGs an interdisciplinary field, linking natural, economic and behavioural sciences with procedures of law and regulation. Until now there was no single outlet for the interdisciplinary research associated with this development. Articles and reports on measuring and managing GHG emissions are being published in many different places, ranging from a number of different scientific journals to national inventory reports and other ‘grey’ literature, and researchers and other professionals have difficulty in keeping up with all the new developments in the field. GHGMM will offer such a single outlet for publication in the field, enhancing and facilitating the development and application of new knowledge and understanding needed to measure and manage GHG emissions.