9 - Data Policies and Governance for Greenhouse Gases Reports and Initiatives

Summary

This chapter presents a case study analysing the challenges and lessons learned from Bahrain’s gas inventory reporting initiative. The analysis focuses on environmental data openness and the experience gained from Bahrain’s National Communications to the UNFCCC. Unfortunately, many regional organisations have varying amounts of experience in data collection, warehousing, and governance. This chapter argues that open environmental data and good data governance could contribute a great deal toward ensuring accountability and transparency. The case study covers challenges faced in Bahrain’s National Communications from 2005 to 2020. It addresses the primary challenges in the greenhouse gas (GHG) Inventory data process and recommends robust data governance practices to improve accuracy, reliability, and transparency in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change GHG inventory data collection. Through analysing past challenges from GHG inventory reporting, the findings underscore the importance of open data, data quality assurance, standardised methodologies, and stakeholder engagement in promoting data transparency and improving the effectiveness of GHG inventory reporting. The chapter also points to best practices globally for GHG inventory data management and then proposes an adapted data governance framework for the GHG inventory. The framework outlines the essential aspects of data governance and proposes a framework for designing effective data governance structures within organisations.