Enhancing scientific transparency in national CO2 emissions reports via satellite-based a posteriori estimates

Abstract Biennial Update Reports (BURs) are essential requirements from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, many non-Annex I countries have not submitted these reports due to difficulties in compiling the inventories. We developed a satellite-based method for the top-down inverse estimation of CO2 emissions using partial-column data in the lower troposphere obtained by the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite, adopted to validate the Mongolian 2nd BUR (BUR2) for the energy sector in 2018. The estimated CO2 emissions were only 1.5% higher than those reported in the BUR2; these were also very close (4.2% smaller) to estimates from the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research. Mongolia is the first country to introduce an independent inverse estimate in its BUR, thereby increasing scientific transparency. Our method could be applied into other countries and could be incorporated into UNFCCC reporting guidelines, significantly improving global CO2 emission estimates

Identifying Riparian Areas of Free Flowing Rivers for Legal Protection: Model Region Mongolia

Mongolia has globally significant biodiversity and pastoral traditions, and scarce water resources on which wildlife and people depend. Rapid growth of the mining sector is a threat to water resources and specifically river riparian zones. Mongolia has passed progressive laws for water and habitat conservation, including establishment of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) and river basin governance organizations, and laws protecting the river riparian zone, but implementation has been hindered by limited technical capacity and data-scarcity, specifically because consistent, accurate maps of the riparian zone did not exist. To address this gap, WWF-Mongolia and partners developed a national delineation of riparian areas based on a spatial model, then validated this with local river basin authorities and provincial governments to designate legal protection zones. As a result, 8.2 million hectares of water protection zones including riparian areas have been legally protected from mining and industrial development in the globally significant landscapes and riverscapes of the Amur, Yenisey, and Ob Rivers headwaters, the Altai Sayan ecoregion, and the Gobi-Steppe ecosystem. These findings demonstrate a pathway for implementing broad-scale, durable legal protection of riverine wetlands through a data-driven, participatory process