Various institutions have worked together to create a new greenhouse gas accounting tool that will help China’s cities with their emissions.
The new tool, called the “Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool for Chinese Cities (Pilot Version 1.0), was made to measure and manage the GHG emissions of China’s cities, helping support city officials in making decisions around low-carbon planning and development.
Amidst China’s growing problem with GHG emissions, low-carbon development has become the core theme of China’s urbanization – and according to the World Resources Institute, one of the developers of the tool, GHG measurement brings China one step closer to low-carbon development.
“For the first time, the GHG Accounting Tool for Chinese Cities provides emission factors and new data collection methodologies that are tailored specifically for Chinese cities. The tool will empower cities, counties and regions across China to measure their emissions and shift to low-carbon development,” said Dr. Wee Kean Fong, global lead for W.R.I.’s city level GHG measurement project.
The online tool will emphasize on industrial, building, transportation, and waste sectors – which are the key emission sources in most of China’s cities. It covers GHG emissions and sinks from buildings, industries, transportation, solid waste, wastewater treatment and disposal, industrial processes, agricultural activities, and forest and land use changes.
“City-level GHG inventories must be compatible with provincial-level inventories and consistent with the international standard. This is one of the most important characteristics of this tool. It helps cities track their GHG emissions against their provincial goals and benchmark with other cities from around the world,” said Prof. Guiyang Zhuang from the Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, or CASS.
The tool was developed by the W.R.I., CASS, World Wide Fund China, and the Institute for Sustainable Communities. It was developed based on the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions. – EcoSeed Staff