The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Liberia on Wednesday, March 6, 2019 commenced a three-day capacity building workshop on the preparation of National Greenhouse Gases (GHG) Inventory in Liberia.
Greenhouse gas is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range. Greenhouse gases cause the greenhouse effect.
The workshop, according to authorities of the EPA is intended to build capacity as Liberia prepares to report its second national communication to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.
Liberia has ratified the United Nations Convention on Climate Change.
The workshop, which is expected to end on Friday, March 8, 2019 attracted representatives of key government’s ministries and agencies including the ministries of Transport, Mines and Energy, Forestry Development Authority (FDA), and Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) amongst others.
Speaking at the start of the training workshop, EPA Deputy Executive Director, Randall M. Dobayou reiterated plans to work with the University of Liberia towards the introduction of three masters’ degree programs that will focus on environment.
The Focal Point for United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), Benjamin S. Karmorh and Dr. Charles Asumana, a staff at the EPA led the first two sessions of the workshop, which focused on the importance of a GHG Inventory System, and the current system for producing GHG inventory in Liberia.
Prof. Karmorh spoke on the importance of data sharing between participating ministries and organizations, so as to have a uniform inventory on greenhouse gases (GHG) and the needs and plans for a platform that collect and store data from various bodies.
The rest of the sessions for the day were handled by Dr. Sumana Bhattacharya, who is the vice president for climate change at IORA ecological solutions.
She led the workshop in assessing the capacity gaps in preparing a GHG inventory in Liberia.
Madam Bhattacharya also trained participants of the workshop on the use of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) worksheets and the IPCC inventory software.
The workshop is expected to improve capacity of national actors in reporting on GHG and climate change and as well improved networking and data sharing between ministries, organizations and agencies to produce uniform data on GHG emissions.