India highlights need for data integrity at UN meet on climate change

New Delhi: 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 in New York.

The two-day event on ClimateScanner Global Call: Engaging Supreme Audit Institutions in Assessing National Climate Action, Accounts – Brazil (TCU) 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 standardised 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 hand-holding amongst SAI members, he added.

At the session, Murmu shared India's climate action journey beginning with the setting up of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) in 2008.

He said India has achieved success in eight national missions, including declining greenhouse gas emissions since 2005 and meeting 42 per cent cumulative installed capacity from non-fossil fuel sources against a target of 50 per cent by 2030.”

He urged SAI members to undertake collaborative action. “By developing recommendations from insights gleaned from audits of climate change initiatives, we can pave the way for SAIs to become pivotal players in the fight against climate change,” he said.

At a separate event, the CAG of India formally handed over the 2024 Chairmanship of SAI 20 Engagement Group to the President of the Federal Court of Accounts-Brazil, Minister Bruno Dantas.