Climate change-related statistics

High-quality statistics are needed for effective climate action. UNECE plays a leading role in global efforts to advance the development of official statistics for climate analysis and global reporting. UNECE produced the first ever Recommendations on Climate Change-Related Statistics, and UNECE Expert Forum for Producers and Users of Climate Change-Related Statistics provides a key international platform to support this work. 

Objective and main activities

We work with official statisticians to make their statistics fit for analyzing the various aspects of climate change, such as:

• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Drivers of climate change such as sources of emissions in industry, energy, agriculture etc.
• Social, economic and environmental impacts of climate change
• Efforts to mitigate climate change
• Adaptation to the consequences

Our activities include methodological work, sharing knowledge and good practices and capacity development activities, and are guided by the CES Steering Group on Climate Change-Related Statistics. The work contributes to measuring the SDG 13 on climate change and its impacts.

To know more about UNECE activities in the area of climate change beyond statistics, please click here.

Guidelines and recommendations

• Guidance on the role of NSOs in achieving national climate objectives (draft Guidance for consultation and snapshot of the draft Guidance)
• CES Set of Core Climate Change-Related Indicators and Statistics Using SEEA (endorsed by CES in 2020, published in August 2021), its Implementation Guidelines and detailed information on individual indicators in the metadata sheets
• Recommendations on the role of official statistics in measuring hazardous events and disasters and supporting the reporting on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.
• Recommendations on Climate Change-Related Statistics (2014)and Leaflet summarizing the CES Recommendations on climate change-related statistics Russian (October 2016)

Best practices and experience sharing

• Climate Change-Related Statistics in Practice 2023 (August 2023) - overview of countries achievements and plans
• Climate Change-Related Statistics in Practice 2022 (September 2022) - overview of countries achievements and plans
• Climate Change-Related Statistics in Practice 2021 (August 2021) - overview of countries achievements and plans
• Wiki on good practices on climate change-related statistics - sharing best practices

Reports and papers

• In-depth review on the role of the statistical community in climate action (February 2020)
• What do national statistical offices (NSOs) need to know about greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories? (June 2018)
• Keynote speech at the 2017 Expert Forum by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (October 2017)
• Report on countries' progress in climate change-related statistics (February 2017)
• Making the case for greater involvement of national statistical offices in measuring climate-change related statistics (February 2016)
• How national statistical offices can support greenhouse gas inventories? (September 2015)
• Capacity gaps in climate change‐related statistics (September 2015)

Tools and resources

• Resources and tools on statistics for climate action (UNECE, ECLAC, ESCAP, UNESCWA and UNSD)
• Road maps to improve climate change-related statistics Word Russian (March 2017)
• Tool for countries to prioritize action to improve climate data Russian (Updated in March 2017, originally developed in November 2015)

Meetings and events

For all materials related to the past meetings on climate change-related statistics, please click here.

Articles