Australia joins international working group on GHG emissions

The framework aims at reducing emissions by allowing differentiation of natural gas supply chains by emissions.

The department, which is representing Australia at the MMRV Working Group, is collaborating with the department of climate change, energy, the environment and water, which is providing technical expertise on greenhouse gas measurement and reporting, the former said in a release.

Reducing methane, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gas emissions across the fossil fuel energy value chain is essential for global energy decarbonisation and to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

However, the lack of comparable and reliable information to characterise the GHG intensity of deliveries of natural gas limits the ability of buyers to demand and suppliers to provide natural gas with a lower GHG profile, hindering market-driven emissions abatement efforts.

Therefore, twelve countries, the European Commission and the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (observer) have formed a multi-national working group to develop a consensus-based approach for MMRV of GHG emissions across the international supply chain from pre-production to final delivery to enable the provision of comparable and reliable information.

The 11 other countries are Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The MMRV Working Group will advance comparability by reviewing and building upon existing standards and protocols to provide a consistent set of technical criteria for reporting emissions and operating data at various levels of data availability.

The approach will encourage and prefer measured data over modeled data and estimation of emissions, while balancing economic and technical feasibility.

The MMRV Framework will also be technology neutral with respect to approaches for measurement of emissions. These actions will improve the accuracy and representativeness of the reported data.

Comparability will be further supported by using transparent and consistent tools for estimating GHG supply chain emissions and data quality from pre-production through final delivery of the natural gas.

To provide comparable and reliable information, the MMRV Working Group will support independent third-party verification of the accuracy and representativeness of the emissions data and the aggregate supply chain GHG emissions intensity.

It will also support accreditation to ensure that certifiers are independent of the reporting entity and are technically qualified to conduct reviews.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)