City Climate Intelligence

Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions to Limit Global Warming and Climate Change

What is the City Climate Intelligence project?

It’s the world’s first action-oriented, greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring platform for cities. It aims to unleash the transformative capacity of high-resolution, near real-time CO₂ monitoring to increase citizen buy-in, support decision-making, and drive CO₂ emissions reduction investments within cities.

Information concept Search on digital background

Why is it important?

Cities face a critical information gap for addressing the climate crisis and achieving net-zero emissions. They lack actionable data about how, where, and when GHG emissions are emitted in their communities.

Access to more frequent, localized, and cost-effective GHG emissions data along with targeted GHG emissions reduction insights would provide vital support to city climate action planning and decision-making—while also providing citizens with a tool for holding their governments accountable to climate commitments.

Every ton counts. Every year counts. Every data point counts.

How does the City Climate Intelligence platform help reduce emissions?

The next-generation methodology will deliver near real-time, high-resolution GHG emissions data. This will help us move beyond standardized GHG emissions reporting and support actionable insights to reduce GHG emissions in our cities.

To provide these insights, our methodology analyzes emissions information at three spatial scales: Tier 1 (the metropolitan area level), Tier 2 (the neighborhood level), and Tier 3 (the building and street level). The insights generated by CCI can support a cycle of awareness, action, and accountability that engages everyone involved in the city climate ecosystem.

Our global coverage is increasing fast. Currently, we offer Tier 1 insights for 53 cities in 28 countries, across 6 continents. As well, through our Tier 3 methodology we offer high-resolution insights on our two pilot cities, Paris and Los Angeles.

A science-based technology chain with user-centric design for impact driven use.

Our Progress

The City Climate Intelligence platform wrapped up a development and piloting phase in Fall 2022. During this phase, the team worked closely with city staff and community members in pilot cities around the world to prove the concept and develop a platform and preliminary insights. These engagements provided key insights to refine and optimize the platform for key user group needs and help define a future standardization framework.

Check out the following resources the team has developed as part of the development and pilot phase:

City Climate Intelligence: Addressing the Urban Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information Gap
City Climate Intelligence: Leveraging Local Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data for Climate Solutions
City Climate Intelligence Visualization Portal: City Level Mapping for 53 Cities and More Info on Our High-Resolution Pilot Cities and Related Methodologies

Preliminary Analysis & Insights:
CCI Use Case: Measuring the Impact of Low-Emission Zones in Paris
CCI Use Case: Targeting Residential Rooftop Solar Opportunities in LA

Next Steps

Initial feedback shows that cities are excited by the opportunity to streamline emissions data analysis and access action-oriented insights. In order to meet communities’ needs and build on the team’s momentum thus far, the CCI team aims to design a GHG emissions data product, climate policy toolkit, and platform for cities, and expand its reach to more cities.

Potential initiatives include:
1. Expand asset level data to 100 cities, and city level data for an additional 1,500 cities globally.
2. Develop a scalable analysis and insights platform to identify mitigation opportunities and simulate the impact of policies, investments, and infrastructure.
3. Develop a platform to enable all actors in the climate action ecosystem to access the CCI data and methodology.

As we scale this work, we are looking to engage with new cities for future phases of the initiative. Please contact us at cityclimateintelligence@rmi.org to inquire about participation opportunities and how the City Climate Intelligence initiative can bring real-time GHG insights to your city.

“City Climate Intelligence opens up new possibilities for city managers to both renew the pace and narrative of the climate dialogue with citizens, NGOs, and businesses and to access actionable insights for higher impact climate decisions.”

Yann Françoise, City of Paris, deputy head and head of Climate department of Climate and Ecological Directorate, 2021 UN Global Climate Action Award Winner

Join City Climate Intelligence

As we scale the platform over time, we will be looking to engage with new cities for future phases of the initiative. Please contact us at cityclimateintelligence@rmi.org to inquire about participation opportunities and how the City Climate Intelligence initiative can bring real-time GHG insights to your city.