China刚刚宣布缓解目标到2030年或更早的排放量达到顶峰，而美国坚定的到2025pledged to reduceits emissions 34 percent below business-as-usual emissions by 2020. Costa Rica has a carbon neutrality goal to be achieved by 2021. New York City旨在减少其排放到2030年，低于2005年水平的30％。以及其他无数的城市和国家设定了类似的排放量目标。

问题在于，对于某些目标，该设计的细节仍不清楚（例如，在中国的排放层将达到什么水平？美国将如何跟踪进度朝着一系列可能的排放减少范围？）。这些司法管辖区无法准确，始终如一地衡量它们是否有望实现这一目标的多样性，直到现在，也就是说。

温室气（GHG）协议的缓解目标标准今天启动，提供了有史以来第一种标准化方法，用于设计，评估和报告各种国家和地区缓解目标的进度。该标准可以帮助政府设定减少排放目标，符合国内外排放量向UNFCCC等团体报告义务，并确保减少排放的努力实际上取得了预期的结果。

标准的目标

The standard is intended to help national and subnational governments accomplish the following objectives:

  • Design a greenhouse gas mitigation goal, which involves weighing the advantages and disadvantages of various types of mitigation goals and informs the choice of mitigation strategies used for achieving the goal
  • 定义用于跟踪进度的会计方法
  • 计算目标年中允许的排放，以了解与实现目标相关的未来排放水平
  • 评估和报告实现目标的进度，该目标可以评估实现目标需要采取哪些其他措施，允许公开报告目标进度和评估方法，并满足利益相关者对透明度的要求
  • Assess and report whether a goal has been achieved

案例研究：南非的采矿排放

The standard is being launched along with the政策和行动标准，是估计政策和行动的温室气体影响的会计和报告标准。智利，印度，以色列，南非，英国和美国的机构已经对该标准进行了试点测试。

采用南非：到2015年，国民政府设定了一个目标，以减少其采矿业的排放15％。Promethium碳, a carbon finance consulting group, used the缓解目标标准查看该国是否有望实现这一目标。

The group started with South Africa’s base-year emissions from the mining sector, which it calculated to be 10.68 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. By following the calculations set out in the缓解目标标准该组织发现，该行业将需要将其排放量减少1.31兆吨的温室气体（或低于2013年水平约12.6％）才能实现其2015年目标。该评估为采矿业提供了确定减少排放并实现其目标所需采取的其他措施所需的信息。

迈向设计和评估缓解目标的标准化，健壮的方式

A forthcoming report underscores the urgency of a consistent framework for designing and measuring progress on mitigation goals. TheUNEP排放差距报告，明天将发布的更新版本，一再发现了一个重要的版本“排放差距”between where global emissions are currently headed and where they need to be to have a likely chance oflimiting warming to 2°C, thus preventing some of the more disastrous impacts of climate change. Part of the reason for this “gap” is that unclear assumptions and lenient accounting rules underlie some countries’ mitigation goals. It is our hope that this standard advances a more consistent, accurate and transparent method of designing and tracking progress, which can reduce uncertainty about future emissions levels.

Following the launch, WRI will hold a series of training workshops on the standards—in Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, Ethiopia, India, and Thailand—between late 2014 and February 2015. For more information and to download the standard, visit the温室气体协议网站。