2


It is common for cities to have responsibility for 2 types of GHG emissions inventories: emissions resulting from municipal operations, and those relating to activities across the community as a whole. CDP offered C40 cities the option to disclose city government operations emissions and/or community emissions, or neither. The figures and findings in this section are based on the information that C40 cities have disclosed to CDP. 11


City government operations


Like national governments, city governments often own or operate a large number of assets that produce or consume energy. The emissions that result from these assets can be measured and analyzed separately from the overall emissions that arise from all public and private activities within the city’s geopolitical boundary. City governments can themselves be significant energy users and carbon emitters but can also exert direct control over emissions reductions from municipal operations. 12,13,14


Almost half of the C40 cities disclose emissions from city government operations 45 percent (19) of the cities disclose


Greenhouse Gas Measurement and Management


emissions from city government operations. The aggregate emissions from the responding 19 cities comprise 27.3 million metric tons CO2


-e,


which is roughly equal to the total emissions from a major oil company like Repsol YPF, which operates in over 35 countries producing oil and gas. Estimates of emissions resulting from city government operations range between 1 percent (São Paulo, London, Melbourne) to 7 percent (New York, Toronto) of total community wide emissions.


Cities use a variety of methodologies, yet some commonalities are present Efforts to measure GHG emissions from city government operations in a harmonized way have not yet caught on widely. Many cities utilize existing international methodologies like the ICLEI Local Government Operations Protocol or the IPCC, and then combine these approaches with their own proprietary methodologies that fit local circumstances. As such, the data suggests that many cities recognize the value of international protocols but still find them lacking. There is no ‘preferred’ methodology. In general, cities prefer to capture emissions data based on actual usage or activity data, rather than extrapolating from regional/ national/economic sector statistics.


Between responding cities, there is variation between the GHG inventory year reported. The majority of cities report emissions data over 2009 and 2010, whereas other cities report emissions inventories for years ranging from 2004 to 2008, though overall the trend is towards calculating and reporting emissions data annually.


Spreadsheets dominate, but North American cities move toward enterprise software tools to help manage emission reduction projects In their efforts to collect and manage emissions, city governments have adopted a number of software tools, with varying levels of sophistication. The most common approach is using spreadsheets (like Microsoft Excel); more than half of the cities report spreadsheets as their software of choice for tracking city government operations emissions. However, a few pioneering cities are utilizing more sophisticated soft ware tools. A trend emerging from a number of cities in North America is the move towards enterprise software- based resource management systems to collect, calculate, and analyze data. 15


Fig. 09: Cities that disclose city government operation emissions, by region 45%


19 out of 42 Total


100%


10 out of 10 North


America ....% as regional percentage 14 © 2011 Carbon Disclosure Project


40%


2 out of 5 East Asia


40%


Southeast Asia and Oceania


2 out of 5


33%


1 out of 3 Africa


25%


2 out of 8 Latin


America


22%


2 out of 9 Europe


South and West Asia


0 out of 2


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