China and India agree to monitor GHG

China and India have now reaffirmed to important domestic audiences that they will that they will report their global warming emissions every 2 years, with the internationally agreed guidelines and transparency provisions defined in Copenhagen. 

So why is this so important from an environmental standpoint?  One of the fundamentals of any environmental policy is a three step process of knowing:

1. Where you currently are (e.g., how good, bad, or ugly is your current environmental situation);
2. Where you want to head (e.g., what are you trying to achieve in order to solve the challenge); and
3. Where you are at various points towards your end goal – point 2 (e.g., in 2 years time are you making good progress towards your goal or not).

Creating a process to improve the assessment of progress.  Before the Copenhagen Accord, the world had an incomplete system of accountability and transparency.