ICLEI-USA Refutes Study Alleging Cities Undercount GHG Emissions

On the heels of a study that indicated a broad underreporting of local greenhouse gas emissions by U.S. cities, ICLEI-USA (the U.S. chapter of Local Governments for Sustainability) has issued a press release rejecting the study's findings. "The GHG accounting method in the study is atypical in local GHG accounting, it is not fully comparable with city inventories, and does not address some of the key policy levers that drive cities to conduct GHG inventories and develop GHG mitigation strategies," ICLEI-USA claims.

The press release explains that the U.S. Community Protocol for Accounting and Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (USCP), an index used by many communities, "details science-based methodologies and best practices to guide local governments as they measure and report the GHG emissions and removals associated with their communities," highlighting the policy areas where local intervention has "the best opportunity" to reduce emissions and increase carbon sinks. "Local government practitioners developed community GHG accounting protocols to provide actionable results for decision makers and align with national inventories for multi-level collaboration. To imply that cities have erred in reporting emissions is misleading and does a disservice to the thousands of local governments doing their part to solve the climate crisis."

ICLEI is the developer of the USCP tool, which they say is "developed to provide local policymakers and their communities with the most appropriate understanding of how their community’s activities translate into GHG emissions." Using their standards, they claim, cities can get a better understanding of their role in GHG emissions and which policy decisions can make a real impact at the local scale.