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.

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.

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. 

With cities developing at a whirlwind pace, it's more urgent than ever to track the GHG emissions they are pumping into the atmosphere. In the August 2017 issue of TerraGreen, Aditi Phansalkar explores how frameworks including the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) are helping meet that challenge.

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. 

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.

More than half the world’s people live in cities, and cities are responsible for more than 70 percent of all energy-related carbon dioxide emissions on Earth. These dramatic statistics mean cities have a critical role to play in addressing climate change.

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.

Since its creation in 2002, the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders Program has assisted more than 150 companies to develop and implement long-term climate change strategies. This includes developing a GHG inventory, an inventory management plan, and a GHG reduction target. To replicate the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders Program's successful model in India, WRI, U.S. EPA and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Green Business Center (GBC) are partnering together to replicate the Climate Leaders program there.

Hurricane Sandy was a massive and deadly storm, extending more than 1,000 miles, bringing huge waves and more than 13 feet of water to parts of New York City. In Manhattan, floods swept away cars and overflowed subway stations.

WRI’s GHG Protocol Director, Pankaj Bhatia, delivered a keynote address on the new GHG Protocol Supply Chain Standards at the Life Cycle Management (LCM) Conference 2011. The Life Cycle Management conference series is one of the world’s leading forums for environmental, economic and social sustainability.

GHG Protocol has released a second draft of its Agricultural Guidance for open comment. The Agricultural Guidance is an international supplement to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard that aims to customize the latter to the agricultural sector, while addressing the unique challenges posed by the sector - accounting for reversible carbon stocks in soils and biomass, setting and tracking progress toward reduction targets against a background of highly variable emissions, quantifying emissions, etc.

On the evening of April 14th, WRI filled a role not normally reserved for environmental think tanks: VIP guest at a high-profile New York restaurant opening. Otarian, now open in New York City’s West Village, is a new boutique fast-casual restaurant chain based on the principles of sustainability and vegetarianism. Otarian is also the first global restaurant chain to track the carbon footprint of all of its menu items.

The Mexico GHG Program officially transitioned from a pilot project to a permanent program on October 2, marking a significant milestone for the program partners and 30 par

On October 4th the GHG Protocol launched the new Product Life Cycle and Corporate Value Chain Standards with events in New York City and London. The global press launch of the Standards in New York City occurred in conjunction with WRI’s Corporate Consultative Group (CCG) fall meeting. CCG is a group of 150-200 representatives of large corporations, mainly sustainability managers, who are coming to engage with WRI experts – and with each other – to access environmental intelligence in order to protect and grow shareholder value and steer business to better protect the environment.

Project developers are concerned that high transaction costs and uncertainty around the acceptance of projects by governing bodies is limiting the number of projects being developed in Africa and around the world.

By Stephen Russell