TY - JOUR
T1 - Under-reporting of greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities
AU - Gurney, Kevin Robert
AU - Liang, Jianming
AU - Roest, Geoffrey
AU - Song, Yang
AU - Mueller, Kimberly
AU - Lauvaux, Thomas
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Bruce Hungate, Kate Petersen, and Phil DeCola for editorial input. K.R. Gurney, J. Liang, G. Roest, and Y. Song received support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant NNX14AJ20G and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Grant 70NANB16H264N. T. Lauvaux was supported by the French research program Make Our Planet Great Again (project CIUDAD).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12/1
Y1 - 2021/12/1
N2 - Cities dominate greenhouse gas emissions. Many have generated self-reported emission inventories, but their value to emissions mitigation depends on their accuracy, which remains untested. Here, we compare self-reported inventories from 48 US cities to independent estimates from the Vulcan carbon dioxide emissions data product, which is consistent with atmospheric measurements. We found that cities under-report their own greenhouse gas emissions, on average, by 18.3% (range: −145.5% to +63.5%) – a difference which if extrapolated to all U.S. cities, exceeds California’s total emissions by 23.5%. Differences arise because city inventories omit particular fuels and source types and estimate transportation emissions differently. These results raise concerns about self-reported inventories in planning or assessing emissions, and warrant consideration of the new urban greenhouse gas information system recently developed by the scientific community.
AB - Cities dominate greenhouse gas emissions. Many have generated self-reported emission inventories, but their value to emissions mitigation depends on their accuracy, which remains untested. Here, we compare self-reported inventories from 48 US cities to independent estimates from the Vulcan carbon dioxide emissions data product, which is consistent with atmospheric measurements. We found that cities under-report their own greenhouse gas emissions, on average, by 18.3% (range: −145.5% to +63.5%) – a difference which if extrapolated to all U.S. cities, exceeds California’s total emissions by 23.5%. Differences arise because city inventories omit particular fuels and source types and estimate transportation emissions differently. These results raise concerns about self-reported inventories in planning or assessing emissions, and warrant consideration of the new urban greenhouse gas information system recently developed by the scientific community.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-20871-0
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-20871-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 33531471
AN - SCOPUS:85100332683
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 12
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 553
ER -