The Rio+20 Conferences on Sustainable Development have emphasized that climate change represents an immediate and urgent global priority. There is a pressing need for new information to support analysis of climate change and for the improvement of currently available information. National governments have for many years published information on greenhouse gas emissions through a well-established collection and reporting process. Information on other aspects of climate change, including on the social and economic impacts of mitigation and adaptation, are less well developed.

National statistical offices offer a wide range of environmental, social and economic statistics that could be better utilized for climate change analysis. Many indicators exist but the focus differs among countries and international comparability requires improvements. Analysing climate change across all its dimensions requires linkage of climate information with national statistics on cross-cutting societal issues.

The term “climate change related statistics” refers to environmental, social and economic statistics measuring the drivers, impacts and costs of climate change. The term is not meant to cover data measuring climate and weather directly; for example, temperature and precipitation.