PROJECTS

CarboCount: Carbon accounting of Europe’s regions

PROJECT TYPE

Innovation - develops and brings to market climate-relevant knowledge, products and services

LOCATION

Paris and Les Landes forest area in South-Western France

START DATE
September 2011
LEAD PARTNER
PROJECT MANAGER
THEME

Decisions Metrics and Finance

PARTNERS
Thalès Alenia Space
NOVELTIS
CEA
UVSQ
INRA

The CarboCount Project will apply novel accounting techniques to vastly improve the accuracy of regional greenhouse gas (GHG) observations. As well as answering the needs expressed by potential users, CarboCount’ s innovative accounting methodology will be developed into marketable products for measuring greenhouse gases and sinks.

Whilst our scientific understanding of GHG emissions is increasing, our capacity to respond to the problem through mitigation and adaptation has not kept up. Monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) is an essential element of driving emissions reductions; however progress is currently limited by the lack of appropriate MRV tools. There is an increasing demand for methods that can provide independent, reliable and verifiable information on GHG emissions at a regional level. Currently, there are no available methods that provide sufficient accuracy on the market. Existing reports on GHG emission and sinks are largely based on ‘bottom-up’ inventories, but this approach generates high uncertainties due to the significant variability in values, as well as errors in activity data and emissions factors.