Smart Net-Zero

June 2, 2026 | International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) |

IRRI joined rice and climate researchers from FAO, AfricaRice, IRTA, the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, and NARO at a writeshop hosted by Japan's JIRCAS in Tsukuba (April 7-10, 2026), supported by the Global Methane Hub, to draft updated global guidelines for measuring greenhouse gas emissions from rice systems. The effort updates 2015 Asia-focused guidance to reflect new technologies and field experience, addressing inconsistencies in chamber design, sampling, quality control, and flux calculation that limit comparability across national GHG inventories, most of which still rely on coarse Tier 1 approaches that fail to capture the diversity of rice ecosystems and management practices. Participants agreed on weekly sampling as a baseline standard, reviewed emerging tools such as trace gas and photoacoustic analyzers, and set metadata and FAIR data reporting requirements. The draft distinguishes minimum from recommended measurements for resource-constrained institutions and may feed into future IPCC reporting.