"One real prob with greenhouse gas data is that in many countries, the inventories are years and years out of date," he said. "In some countries, there has only really been one inventory, and that can be in some cases from the early '90s."
Boucher said EPA has been developing software to make it easier to collect these inventories. He drew an analogy to tax-preparation software: The program "knows" thousands of pages of tax law, but it only guides the user through the parts that are relevant to her.
How to bring in China?
In the same way, it's possible to come up with a software program that lets a country put in the data that apply to its unique types of factories, trees, furnaces and so on.
"In a sense, it's a very complex process, but what it eventually does is help you fill out a form," he said.
He said it's possible China would consider such a system, but it'll act more slowly than Mexico because of its sensitivities to sharing information.
As for the software developed by Abt Associates, Indonesia, which ranks third in global greenhouse gas emissions, has expressed interest.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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