CLIMATE CHANGE AND OFFICIAL STATISTICS Sixty-Third Session of the Economic Commission for Europe by Heli Jeskanen-Sundstrom, Chair of the Conference of European Statisticians

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND OFFICIAL STATISTICSSixty
-Third Session of the Economic Commission for
Europeby Heli Jeskanen-Sundstrom, Chair of the
Conference of European Statisticians

• 31 March 2009

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BACKGROUND

• Climate change, a main global issue with social,
  economic and environment impacts 2009 - an
  important year for establishing the post-2012
  climate framework
• Official statisticians have a key role in
  contributing to the production and dissemination
  of relevant climate change statistics
• Authoritative, robust, timely and comparable
  climate change statistics are needed
• However, consistent and comparable annual
  statistics are not yet available
• Improvement of climate change data requires a
  joint effort by environmental agencies,
  statistical institutes and research community at
  national, European and global level

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STATISTICS AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL

• NSOs have an important role at a national level
  in providing statistical information for climate
  change related monitoring and analysis by
• making better use of existing statistics
• identifying data gaps and the ways to fill them
• Developing climate change statistics requires
  training and capacity building, in particular in
  the countries with less developed statistical
  systems in the region
• Dialogue and coordination among various
  stakeholders, which engage in climate change
  statistics is crucial for ensuring the production
  of high quality statistics

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INITIATIVES AT A GLOBAL LEVEL

• Work at the international level is important to
  ensure that standards and methodologies can best
  support the regular production of climate change
  statistics as part of official statistics
• Two conferences on Climate Change and Official
  Statistics (Oslo and Seoul), 2008
• recognized the importance of climate change as a
  major global, regional, and national policy issue
  
• emphasized the value of good quality statistical
  information to support policy and decision-making
  at different levels
• provided recommendations to shape and refine a
  roadmap for further development of official
  climate change statistics at the regional,
  national and international level
• Essential to work in close cooperation with
  UNFCCC and IPCC, to clarify and respond to the
  data needs of the policymakers

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UNECE WORK ON CLIMATE CHANGE STATISTICS

• CES Bureau already discussed possible work
  related to climate change statistics
• Official statistics can add a significant value
  to work on GHG emission inventories under the
  UNFCCC. As a first step
• - Explore the degree to which NSOs are involved
  in climate change related work and in compiling
  GHG inventories
• - Identify common concerns that can be dealt with
  at international level
• Explore the possibilities to contribute to the
  UNECE climate change activities in areas like
  transport, energy, forestry and housing
• Any future CES work will take into account the
  activities of IPCC, UNFCCC and other institutions
  dealing with climate change data