The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is committed to assist Papua New Guinea complete its report on a National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGHGI).
The report must be completed and submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
PNG is among many countries under the UNFCCC that rectified the Paris Agreement and must report on their status on the NGHGI.
The Agriculture, Forest and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) sector is a key source of greenhouse gas emissions for PNG.
Land use, land use change and forest (LULUCF) expert from the FAO, Esther Mertens says AFOLU is a very important sector for PNG and it will be very important to report on the GHG potentials and impacts of the economy of PNG.
Mertens is based at the FAO Headquarters in Rome and is currently in the country carrying out a hands-on training workshop in Kavieng for inventory compilers working with the Climate Change and Development Authority (CCDA) and the agriculture sector.
Mertens explained that AFOLU involves 80 percent of forest and also where agriculture is one of the biggest income for the country.
Mertens said, “We are here to work specifically on the estimation of the GHG inventory for the AFOLU sector which is a very technical part of the inventory.
“We are also here to review the data collection and the compilation of the GHG emission estimates.”
This compilation is done based on international agreed standards that are written in the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) that has produced standard guidance for countries to follow in doing these calculations.
Mertens added that it is very important that every country use the same guidance for the calculation.
“We look forward to working together with the PNG experts for the agriculture and land use sector and we will also be very happy to report to you our outcomes and results of the workshop.”
The workshop is fully supported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) scheduled from March 13-17.