Public Disclosure

Greenhouse Gas Reporting and Disclosure: Key Elements of a Prospective U.S. Program

Public Disclosure

A key objective of a GHG reporting program would be to give the public direct access to information on GHG releases in a timely fashion. Through the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) — an outstanding example of publicly available information — public disclosure in an electronic database has encouraged thousands of companies to assess potential mitigation opportunities and reduce emissions voluntarily. (See box, The Toxics Release Inventory: A Model Reporting Program.) The same could be true with a GHG disclosure program. To meet this objective, data on individual facilities and companies should be made available to the public over the Internet — except for information determined to be a trade secret¹⁰ or information vital to national security. Gross emissions from an entity’s U.S. sources, as well as net emissions (after considering sequestration and other project-based reductions and trading), should be reported to encourage comprehensive mitigation strategies. Companies should also be allowed to provide production-based¹¹ emissions information on a voluntary basis, for example, to show relative emissions reductions even as production increases.

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