eg magazine sustainability, resource efficiency & climate change

The joint report, by the College of Europe and Institut Veolia Environnement, warns that  in order to carry out the required greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventory, cities are confronted with a maze of different tools to construct and implement mitigation and adaptation policies. When calculating the amount of emissions, local authorities need to decide on whose emissions are measured, which greenhouse gases are included and which method is used. The researchers found that a number of advanced calculating tools for creating local greenhouse gas inventories already exist, but that the awareness of these is low. The study concludes that if the different cities' inventories are to produce comparable results, interoperability between the methods used to calculate greenhouse gas emissions will be essential.

This study addresses city representatives, policy makers at municipal and EU level, developers of GHG inventory tools and research­ers or companies active in the field of local climate change mitigation. It highlights challenges and opportunities towards: aligning climate policy with local development; sharpening the awareness of municipal stakeholders about the links between local activities and climate change; the development of local timelines and action plans for meeting long term emission reduction targets in line with a post-Kyo­to protocol or a 60 per cent to 80 per cent GHG reduction until 2050; detailed carbon inventories indicating where actions should focus on, i.e. where biggest reduction potentials lie; realising cost reductions due to a refined understanding of local energy consumption; a methodological framework on the basis of which cities can accurately report progress to a third party; and local benchmarks against a city’s own historical emissions. The study is structured as follows:

• The first section discusses methodological challenges related to the formation of local GHG inventories. Rather than giving a comprehensive overview on methodological problems, this section mainly highlights some of the central methodological chal­lenges posed by local GHG inventories. This overview indentifies critical variables and clarifies concepts that are necessary for the understanding of the subsequent analysis.

• In section two, some of the most advanced GHG inventory tools are screened and assessed using a SWOT (Strengths, Weak­nesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. Finally, the paper draws conclusions on the differences between these tools and gives some tentative research and policy recommendations.