The article “Forgotten carbon: indirect CO2 in greenhouse gas emission inventories” is written by Michael Gillenwater who is a doctoral candidate in the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Program at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The author’s immersion into the subject indicates that the research problem is clearly identified and expressed by him. Michael Gillenwater intends to conclude if the new category of CO2 emissions (indirect CO2) accounting needs to be introduced. On the ground that the ecological problems’ solutions make up the complex of measures, the significance of this research requires no proof.
The core issue is finding how new category magnifies the global and regional GNG emissions (Kaylee, Kaffine, 2013). It can be noted that the specialized terminology like “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” is narrowly defined. All abbreviations are decoded which makes it clear to the reader what the GNG is, as well as UNFCCC and NMVOCs etc. After investigating the article’s list of references one can say that the literature review provided by the author is satisfactory and appropriate. In addition to reports and researches author presents an appropriate link to the websites of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). He also focuses on his own website which is called the Greenhouse Gas Experts Network.
Thereby, one can see that this article is written by the professional who goes into details. In his study Michael Gillenwater discusses current issues about CO2 emissions, and the main research objective is that “project-based methodologies … may need revising to account for indirect CO2” (Gillenwater, 2008, p. 195). The article has such main parts: weighing up all the pros and cons of the indirect CO2 accounting, estimation methodology and its implications, uncertainties and the cases against including indirect CO2. The author’s intended audience is groups of scientists and students in the field of ecology.
One of the main advantages of the author’s research is that the described methodology, which is properly explained, is developed mainly by the author himself. He claims that indirect CO2 emissions can be easily calculated from the estimations of the carbon content in the methane, carbon monoxide and non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs). The author gives the descriptions of simple calculations with the methane and carbon monoxide (Hetherington, Raven, 2005), and for the NMVOCs calculating he proposes the sequence of computational steps.
Besides, the author has downloaded other necessary regulatory documents and added that one can see them among appendixes in the list of online materials. The author emphasizes that “indirect CO2 estimates were made only using data for fugitive emissions from fossil fuel production activities (e.g., coal mining and petroleum and natural gas production)” (Gillenwater, 2008, p. 198).
The next part of the study provides that the author gives the datasets of indirect CO2 estimations and analyzes them before the comparing. He scrutinizes how the record of indirect CO2 influences on the global and national GHG emission accounting.
One can observe that the author added the table with detailed arguments against of his calculations related to the indirect CO2 in the guidelines and it indicates the author’s immersion in the subject and his analytic abilities. His research has a considerable practical significance because of the global focus heart of the problem (Juanjuan, Wenping, 2011). The GNG emission problem is a global ecological issue which requires the analysis a lot of resources to find solution to this problem.
Hence, all kinds of corrections in accounting of gases emission are significant (Wygonik , Goodchild, 2011). The author plans the further investigation and that will provide an opportunity for further researches. He claims that “… project-based methodologies … may need revising to account for indirect CO2” (Gillenwater, 2008, p. 202).
One can observe that the article is structured well enough and the sections have sufficient length. The presented data are worthwhile and it is possible to categorize them as significant for resesrch. Through the article the author explains his subject with clarity. It should be noted that the author is respectful of other researches for their comments and provided data.
References
Gillenwater, M. (2008). Forgotten carbon: indirect CO2 in greenhouse gas emission inventories. Environmental Science & Policy, 11, 195 – 203.
Hetherington, A., Raven, J. (2005). The biology of carbon dioxide. Current Biology, 15, 406 – 410.
Juanjuan, D., Wenping, Z. (2011). The analysis to the Influence of Carbon Dioxide Emissions in Different Countries. Energy Procedia 2010 International Conference on Energy, Environment and Development , 5, 2426-2431.
Kaylee, A., Kaffine, D. (2013). Greenhouse gas emissions, waste and recycling policy. Journal of Environment Economics and Management, 65 (1), 74-86.
Wygonik, E., Goodchild, A. (2011). Evaluating CO2 emissions, cost, and service quality trade-offs in an urban delivery system case study. IATSS Research, 35 (1), 7-15.