A new program to help advance local climate initiatives in cities worldwide was launched today. The City Climate Planner program is being led by the Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) and was created by The World Bank Group along with C40 Cities, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, and World Resources Institute through funding provided by the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund.

The City of Boulder achieved a 5.2 percent reduction in community greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2015 as compared to a 2005 baseline, according to an analysis of the most recently available data. This progress occurred during a time of economic and population growth in the city, magnifying the reductions even more.

Designed for policymakers and practitioners developing economy-wide or sector-specific GHG reporting programs, the course Designing MRV Systems for Entity-Level Greenhouse Gas Emissions is now accepting enrolees for a facilitated online course, to take place Nov. 13 - Dec. 4, 2017.

The GHG Protocol has released an accounting amendment that requires NF3 to be included in GHG inventories under the Corporate Standard, Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard, and Product Standard.

Today the World Resources Institute unveiled new guidance for companies to measure greenhouse gas emissions from purchased electricity. The first major update to the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard responds to the rapid growth of renewable energy and other major shifts in the electricity market.

In partnership with China Electricity Council (CEC), WRI developed a greenhouse gas (GHG) calculation tool for Chinese coal-fired power plants.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol and Quantis have joined forces to develop and launch the Scope 3 Evaluator - a free, web-based tool that allows users to make an initial, rough approximation of their full Scope 3 footprint, regardless of the size or type of organization. Read the full press release here.

Chengdu Development and Reform Commission developed its first greenhouse gas inventory in 2015 (based on 2010 data). This inventory revealed valuable insights about the sources of the city’s emissions. 

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.

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. 

With the Paris Agreement having come into force this year, 12 months after it was agreed, it is more important than ever for businesses to understand, report on, and reduce their carbon emissions.

When the 2011 Newsweek Green Rankings were published, it came as a surprise to many that seven of the worst performing US companies were financial firms. The reason for such a poor performance was inadequate reporting of emissions in corporate supply chains; in the case of financial firms, emissions from their lending and investment portfolios.

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...

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. 

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.

Many financial institutions measure and report their own greenhouse gas emissions, but the real impact is in their value chains. To address this gap, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative have begun developing guidance to help financial intermediaries assess the emissions from their lending and investments portfolios.

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. 

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.

By Laura Draucker - November 05, 2013

Low-carbon development has become the core theme of China’s urbanization. In fact, it’s one of the country’s key strategies to achieve its target of reducing carbon intensity by 40-45 percent by 2020.