The Peat Emit Project: Providing Enhanced Support to Countries in Efforts to Assess and Report Peatland GHG Emissions

The IPCC Wetlands Supplement (2014) incorporates the only internationally agreed global guidelines to report on greenhouse gas emissions from and removals by peatlands. It has been 10 years since its publication and the Wetlands Supplement no longer reflects the latest data or approaches adopted by countries for calculating emissions, presenting a constraint on their efforts to measure and report emissions from the land use sector. The Peat Emit project (part of the Aim4Forests programme managed by FAO) has collected, assessed and updated greenhouse gas emission factors for peatlands in low- and middle-income countries. Specifically, compared to the Wetlands Supplement, it has (i) developed more accurate emission factor estimates for a wider range of land-management options and land use/cover categories than reported in the Wetlands Supplement; (ii) refined approaches to greenhouse gas emissions reporting; and (iii) produced robust criteria for evaluation of data quality.  This poster outlines our approach with examples of updated emission factors for a range of land use/cover categories.