Until now, there was no universal, comprehensive methodology for cities around the world to measure their emissions. One of the tool's creators explains its power in the fight against climate change.

Gujarat's 'solar city — Rajkot in Saurashtra — is being globally recognized as a case study for reducing carbon emissions. As per report by World Resources Institute (WRI), a US-based organization, presented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Peru, Rajkot will be able to reduce 14 per cent cent of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2016. 

A coalition of the world's biggest cities has launched an international tool that will for the first time allow many local authorities to measure their greenhouse gas emissions, providing them with a baseline...

Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s leading cities injecting sustainability into its planning. In 2011, Mayor Eduardo Paes enacted an ambitious climate change law, setting a goal to avoid 20 percent of its emissions by 2020, based on 2005 levels. There was only one problem: The city wasn’t sure just how much it was emitting, or where its emissions were coming from.

Today the World Resources Institute (WRI), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) launched the first widely endorsed standard for cities to measure and report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at a COP20 event featuring mayors and officials from cities around the world. 

Cities are not just where 3.5 billion of us live—they are where more than  half of humanity uses electricity, drives cars, and throws out garbage, among myriad other activities that emit greenhouse gases. Now, a global coalition has released the first standardized method for measuring and reporting a given city’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

As home to 3.5 billion of the world’s population, cities and urban areas play a crucial role in combating global climate change. And today, many of their leaders are announcing steps to do just that.

China just announced a mitigation goal to peak its emissions by 2030 or earlier, while the United States committed to reduce its national emissions by 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. And countless other cities and countries have set similar emissions-reduction targets.

After a successful nine-month pilot test from May 2013 to January 2014, the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) has been revised and is now available for public comment until August 18th. The authors particularly welcome review by city officials, practitioners, and technical experts in the fields of energy, transportation, waste management, agriculture and forestry. As a global reporting standard, the GPC enables cities and communities to consistently measure and report GHG emissions and develop climate action plans and low-emission urban development strategies.