In June 2011, WRI/GHG Protocol commenced a project to provide technical assistance to the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the international best practices to use as models to track citywide GHG emissions and reductions in the city. The project is funded by the World Bank. The key counterpartsinclude theSecretaria de Meio Ambiente of the Rio Prefeitura (the Department of Environment of the city of Rio de Janeiro, or SMAC) and the Instituto Alberto Luiz Coimbra de Pós-graduação e Pesquisa de Engenharia (COPPE).

On January 27, 2011 the city of Rio de Janeiro passed the municipal law No. 5.248/2011 - Municipal Policy on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, which set an unprecedented GHG target for the city of Rioto avoid 20% of GHG emissionsby 2020. In order to achieve this target, SMAC needs to periodically track and report the progress of emission reductions. The Bank appointed WRI/GHG Protocol to help provide technical assistance to track its GHG emissions.

This project includes two components: citywide GHG inventory that comprehensively accounts the emissions from the entire city, and mitigation action GHG accounting that is designed to identify reduction opportunities from specific actions/policies. The project team did a thorough review ofrelevant international standards and guidance for GHG accounting. In order to learn the practical experience from other cities, the project team reviewed the practices of more than 60 cities around the world, and did a detailed review on the 14 cities with best. The project provided important inputs to the city of Rio to develop its long term GHG monitoring strategy. Based on GHG Protocol’s recommendation, Rio improved its current GHG inventory (2005) to report based on the scope framework, and presented the final result during the Durban Climate Change Conference in November, 2011.