Category: National governments, Emission inventories

GHG inventory and QA/QC assistance in South Africa

On the road towards establishing a sustainable GHG inventory, Aether assisted South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs to establish a National System for regular GHG estimation, analysis and reporting.

On the road towards establishing a sustainable Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory, South Africa wanted to make sure that they had a high quality national GHG inventory system. With this purpose, Aether has worked together with the Department of Environmental Affairs of the Republic of South Africa, as well as Gondwana and the North-West University. The team has provided hands-on support in the development of South Africa’s institutional arrangements, work plans, data systems, QA/QC systems and improvement plans.

The challenge

South Africa’s national circumstances determine the level required for their inventory compilation. Despite being a non-Annex I country to the UNFCCC, the country is committed to developing a high-quality inventory system.

The solution

During 2015 to 2017, Aether provided hands-on support in the development of South Africa’s institutional arrangements, work plans, data systems, QA/QC systems and improvement plans.  A key solution in meeting South Africa’s needs is the development of a national system portal. Launched in 2016, the online portal facilitates communication between both internal and external stakeholders, and ensures retention of institutional memory with thorough documentation.  The inventory has further been improved through the adoption of best practice compilation templates, including QA/QC checklists and Aether’s QA/QC tool ‘QA Analyst’.  To facilitate engagement and communication with the inventory team, as well as other stakeholders, the project incorporates multiple in-country visits and stakeholder engagement activities, as well as virtual training courses.

The result

The work will ensure that South Africa can develop and maintain a high-quality data collection, analysis and reporting system for GHG emission trends. Through this process, the system will meet the needs of its climate action policy-makers to track and develop effective policies.
Outputs will inform and engage stakeholders and the public. The system will also support transparent, high-quality reporting to the UNFCCC in support of Biennial Update Reports (BURs) and National Communications (NCs).

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Testimonial

Don't just take our word for it...

“Aether is a great partner for work in the area of European Air Emissions. The team was committed, reliable, well organised and had a deep technical understanding and motivated other partners with their good spirit.”

Umweltbundesamt: Environment Agency Austria

“Saint Lucia embraces the professional approach with which this project was undertaken by Aether, particularly their ability to develop mentorship relations with local government experts. This provides a basis for ensuring that the pool of local experts remain engaged and recognized over successive processes.”

Annette Rattigan-Leo, Chief Sustainable Development and Environment Officer

“Both the face-to-face training and the online version have been of high quality, with dynamic methods and a practical orientation that have allowed students to reach a solid knowledge base. The products have been delivered within the stipulated deadlines with an excellent quality and the team has always shown willingness to make adjustments according to the requirements of CONAF. We are very satisfied with the work. ”

Javier Cano Martín, Professional Unit for Climate Change and Environmental Services, CONAF (National Forestry Corporation), Chile

“The support provided by Aether for this project was especially remarkable considering the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tools and methods used in order to engage local stakeholders really added value to the capacity building of the national team.”

Shanna Emmanuel, Saint Lucia BUR Project Coordinator

“Engaging Aether to support us to develop the first GHG Inventory System and first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for the United Republic of Tanzania has been a rewarding experience due to their high level of professionalism, creativity, timeliness and value for money. We will definitely consider Aether in our future initiatives.”

Abbas Kitogo, Programme Specialist Energy and Climate Change, UNDP Tanzania

“The Aether team were a joy to work with and I would recommend the consultancy - the service provided throughout the process was exceptional.”

Clare Bayley, Defra

“Professional team and very collaborative communication. Effective result in terms of suggestions for improvement in the quality of the inventory and proposals on how to streamline specific topics.”

Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research

“A heartfelt thank you to all the Aether team for this very comprehensive review – this is certainly turning out to be one of the most beneficial capacity building projects I have ever been involved in.”

Saviour Vassallo, Senior Environment Protection Officer, Malta Resources Authority

“Chris was excellent to work with and always very pro active in making suggestions, taking work forward and applying his considerable technical knowledge in effective ways.”

Robert Vaughan, Defra Air Quality Team

“It has been a pleasure to work with Chris Dore and Richard Claxton from Aether: they did their job in a very professional and timely manner. The workshop was organized and carried out in a cooperative spirit; the information provided to the workshop participants was complete and clear.”

Alina Novikova, UN/ECE Secretariat

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