India Highlights Need For Data Integrity At UN Meet On Climate Change

NEW YORK, NY (IANS) – Data integrity is essential for a fair audit assessment of any national climate action plan, an absence of which may result in biases in climate data and misguided policy decisions, the Comptroller & Auditor General of India, Girish Chandra Murmu, said at a panel discussion at the UN headquarters, here.

The two-day event on ClimateScanner Global Call: Engaging Supreme Audit Institutions in Assessing National Climate Action, Accounts – Brazil on March 25 and 26, according to a statement issued by the CAG’s office on Wednesday.

The ClimateScanner is an initiative led by the Supreme Audit Institution of Brazil to develop a comprehensive audit tool for assessing government efforts in alleviating climate change issues.

Murmu said that the Supreme Audit Institutions face several obstacles while assessing national climate action, including data gaps, incomplete records, and a limited number of climate stations.

The lack of standardized methodologies and reporting frameworks and different countries deploying different approaches to measure emissions make the task of comparing and aggregating data globally challenging.

This requires sustained efforts at capacity building and handholding amongst SAI members, he added.