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What are the data requirements for developing a BEI?
Activity data
- Activity data are specific to the area and typically are the most difficult to obtain.
- Activity data will need to be collected or calculated for the project, city or household level and cannot be a default value.
- When we produce GHG emission inventories, we sometimes estimate activity data for a city by downscaling national data based on population size.
Emission factors
- Emission factors are generally sourced from published IPCC Guidelines, although some countries have developed their own national level factors.
- EFs for electricity are specific to each country depending on how their electricity is generated. These are published by the African Energy Commission, by countries in their NDCs, and/or by the national energy or electricity utility.
- For solid and liquid fuels, we usually use the international default values published by the IPCC. Some countries will specify slightly different EFs for fuels in their National Communications to the UNFCCC, in which case these should be used.
Global warming potential
- GWP values are published by the IPCC in each Assessment Report (AR) based on the latest climate science. Using the latest values where possible is recommended.
Table 1: GWP values (100-year timescale) for the three main GHGs, published in the IPCC Assessment Reports
| Assessment Report (AR) version | CO2 | CH4 | N2O |
|---|---|---|---|
| AR2 (IPCC, 1995) | 1 | 21 | 310 |
| AR5 (IPCC, 2014) | 1 | 28 | 265 |
| AR6 (IPCC, 2021) | 1 | Fossil origin: 29.8 Non-fossil origin: 27.2 | 273 |
Data quality
The quality of data can be seen as a measure of how closely the data matches the emission inventory boundary in terms of geographical location, time period, and the source of the data (reliable and verifiable).
The GPC requires both activity data and emission factors to be assessed in terms of quality, according to the table below:
Table 2: Data quality assessment
| Data quality | Activity data | Emission factor |
|---|---|---|
| High (H) | Detailed activity data | Specific emission factors |
| Medium (M) | Modeled activity data using robust assumptions | More general emission factors |
| Low (L) | Highly modeled or uncertain activity data | Default emission factors |
With the growing availability of data from AI tools, the caveat to using such tools is that these data sources should always be verified or compared to local sources, because they are often developed in or for the global North and are not always accurate for African cities.
