Construction and application of open access database “Emission Accounts and datasets for emerging countries (CEADs)”

Open Research objectives

CEADs provides an open-access online platform where everyone can freely access the framework, guidelines, and dataset of emission accounting of global emerging countries, and also related publications, software and other academic resources. The database has provided data support for academic research on emissions and climate change, and also supported for global and local low-carbon development and climate change mitigation.

Introduction

CEADs gathers a group of experts from China, Europe, and the USA to work on China and other emerging economies’ emission accounting methods and applications. We provide accurate and most up-to-date carbon emission and social economic and trade data is the duty of the whole academic field for policy stakeholders and the public.

For example, we provide long time-series (1997-2019) and multi-scale (nation, provinces, cities, and counties) emission inventories for China. The emission inventories are consistent in terms of methods, scopes, and format, and also meet the benchmark of international guidelines. The methodology, dataset, and academic analysis have been published in open access journals, including Science Advances (2018) and Scientific Data (2018, 2019, 2020). The impact of GCEADs has been increasingly improved worldwide and until now the dataset has been downloaded more than 10,000 times. It has been cited as the data source by more than 300 research which has been published in top journals such as Nature, and also been consulted by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) assessment reports and compiling of national greenhouse gas inventories in China.

Motivation

Emission data is the foundation of climate change research and mitigation efforts. However, the emission inventories of emerging countries are still rare and in low quality. Aiming at improving the accuracy, reliability, and resolution of emission inventories in emerging countries, CEADs is established. All data and results are freely accessible and shared, which aims to promote the collaboration of global researchers and supports policymaking in terms of low-carbon development and climate change mitigation.

Lessons learned

In addition to complete data availability and free sharing, the reason why CEADs is widely used is due to the successful promotion for attracting broader audiences including scholars, policymakers, and other stakeholders. First, CEADs has provided an easy-to-use open access platform, where everyone can download the most up-to-date emission data freely. Second, CEADs and related academic outcomes have been recommended to international reports such as IPCC and been introduced to international conferences and workshops, which are highly recognized and commented by peer viewers. Third, CEADs has been broadly diffused by our strong consortium constituting members from various research institutions. We have launched our CEADs channel in social medias such as Twitter and WeChat platform to access wider audience, and we are preparing the MOOC open online course. Fourth, a ten-day free summer school on CEADs learning is held every July, which includes lectures and group work on data collection and emission accounts. The summer school has been successfully organized annually since 2017 and was attended by 70 students from different universities each year. In addition, over a dozen national and local stakeholders have attended our previous summer schools to learn about findings and potential benefits for their efforts toward sustainable development for their own cities. The summer school has propagandized CEADs successfully and attracted new blood to our team.

URLs, references and further information

CEADs gathers a group of scholars on climate change studies, including Yuli Shan (IREES, RUG), Dabo Guan (Tsinghua University), Klaus Hubacek (IREES, RUG), Yuru Guan (IREES, RUG), Yanxian Li (IREES, RUG) and other experts from China, Europe, and the USA.

• https://www.ceads.net