Monitoring Is Key to Cutting Emissions

Pledges to reduce emissions and tackle climate change are important, but a new study says making sure they are actually carried through is vital.

The big achievement of the Paris Agreement on climate change last December was getting more than 190 countries around the world to agree to a significant program of lowering carbon emissions.  But the reality is that promises are no good if not followed up by action.

Nations also pledged to pursue various other policies aimed at meeting the goal of limiting the rise in average global temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

But a new study published in Climate Policy journal warns that laudable as these pledges and policies are, they mean very little without strong, transparent monitoring systems capable of building trust between the various nations involved.

The study was carried out by researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia in the UK and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

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