Representatives from Thailand’s agricultural government agencies recently attended the quality control of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory data workshop held to support an enhanced transparency process for Thailand’s GHG inventory data in the agriculture sector.

On 6 November 2020, the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP) and the Office of Agricultural Economics (OAE) in collaboration with Thai-German Climate Programme – Policy (TGCP-Policy) hosted the kick-off workshop on Quality Control (QC) of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory data in the agricultural sector.

Participating organisations included the Office of Agricultural Economics, the Land Development Department, the Office of Cane and Sugar Board, the Department of Agricultural Extension, the Department of Livestock Development, the Department of Agriculture, the Rice Department, the Royal Irrigation Department and the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (Public Organization) (GISTDA).

The participants learned data collection methods and quality control of the data, for example, numbers of livestock, burnt crop areas, amount of fertilizer, crop areas, etc., and also shared existing procedures and activities in order to meet the needs of the data owners and to collect and submit these to OAE and ONEP. Based on the existing structures, the GIZ team in cooperation with local experts will design a customised QC template for the agriculture sector.  This will be supported by a series of consultations with all relevant agencies within the sector and a training course in 2021.

‘Quality Control’ (QC) is a procedure to ensure the quality of data, which brings about transparency, accuracy, completeness, comparability, and consistency (TACCC) of emission inventory data. This procedure is in accordance with the preparation of the Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) to which Thailand committed in the Paris Agreement and which the country will submit to UNFCCC within 2024.

“Previously, there was no standard or formal format for quality assurance or quality control at the data owner level. This activity will support the formulation of a formal QC template, which is in line with the standards of the 2006 IPCC guideline as well as meeting users’ requirements and avoiding repetition of the procedure and extra work for the stakeholders,” said Dr. Natthanich Asvapoositkul, Director of Climate Change Management and Coordination Division, ONEP.

The workshop is part of the support being provided to ONEP to establish QC procedures and is a component of the Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) process of GHG emission inventory preparation in the agricultural sector. The agricultural sector is one of five sectoral sources of GHG emitters (energy, transport, waste and Industrial Product and Products Use (IPPU) sectors).