Projections of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals: An Introductory Guide for Practitioners
Understanding future GHG emissions can help a country to define a GHG reduction target, see if they are on track to meeting an existing target, estimate the impacts of certain mitigation measures and help plan mitigation measures in the medium and long-term.
Countries should carefully consider developing GHG projections as this information enables many decision-making processes. There is no one size fits all projections tool, there are a number of options, each used to help answer a different set of questions. In order to select a tool, a country must understand a few things: which questions they are trying to answer, what functions the tool should have, what time horizon they want to understand, what scope the model should consider and whether it should provide the flexibility to grow with the user.
This paper aims to provide a short practical introduction about developing GHG projections, targeted at policymakers and other climate practitioners from developing countries with limited experience in this field. The publication provides an overview of key steps for preparing GHG projections and highlights good practices.