ICLEI and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group has released a draft of the Global Protocol for Community-scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GPC) to help cities around the world measure and report greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The GPC is a multi-stakeholder, consensus-based protocol for completing internationally recognised and accepted community-scale greenhouse gas accounting and reporting standards. Public comments on the draft are welcomed until 20 April.

The GPC also complements ICLEI's programmes and tools on local climate actions that are being implemented globally, in particular, the 2009 International Local Government GHG Emissions Analysis Protocol (IEAP) and its national supplements. ICLEI Secretary-General Konrad Otto-Zimmerman said, “With the community protocol, local climate action is entering a new phase of globally harmonised GHG accounting and reporting. Cities will continue leading the way towards building low-carbon and sustainable communities worldwide.”

The community protocol has been developed in collaboration with the World Bank Group, UN-Habitat, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the World Resources Institute (WRI). It contains a policy framework and guiding principles on the efforts of all partners, the continual improvement and refinement of the 2012 Accounting and Reporting Standard, and a roadmap for institutionalising the process for updating the Standard on an ongoing basis.

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