Tracking Carbon with Transparency: Improving Accuracy and Accountability in the International Global Warming Agreement

Having a strong, credible, and transparent system for tracking greenhouse gas emissions and the actions of a country is an essential building block of an effective international system to address global warming. This was a key issue at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 as it was agreement on the elements of the transparency and accountability in the final hours that enabled the full package to be agreed upon by key countries. Resolving important details about how these pieces would be implemented has been a central part of the ongoing global warming negotiations. Advancing progress toward robust measurement, reporting, and verification systems is an imperative for the Cancun Climate Summit.