Gaia CO2balance is an online map-based platform developed by Enersis Climate Intelligence providing data on annual emissions and emissions change to over 1,800 cities in Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and the Netherlands.
Suitable for which city climate journey stage? |
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Tool strengths |
- Aligned with the GPC - Data can be exported via an API - GHG emissions data is integrated into climate action planning tool - Tool can be integrated into further use cases like municipal heat planning etc |
Tool limitations | - Available for cities in Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and the Netherlands but methodology can be transferred to all countries on request |
Geographic location/countries | Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and the Netherlands |
Language | German, English, French |
Accessibility | Pay to use |
Methodology
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Emissions data is partially upscaled from local data (eg data from utilities and satellite data) and partially downscaled from publicly available national German and Swiss data sources, including national statistics for energy, waste and agricultural data and transport emissions models for transport data using population or number of employees. |
Documentation of methodology | Not publicly available |
Data quality/verified by 3rd party | Data quality is assessed on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high) based on whether it comes from direct measurements, locally measured data, or is downscaled from national. Some of the nationally-sourced and local datasets are assessed by a third party. |
Alignment with global standards and protocols (eg GPC and CRF ) | Aligned with the GPC and BISKO (German standard) |
Emissions scopes | 1, 2 and 3 (partially) |
GHGs | CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3 considered as CO2e |
Sectors included | Transport, stationary energy, waste, AFOLU and IPPU |
Scopes, GHGs and sectors excluded | Scope 3 (partially) |
Temporal resolution | Annual |
Spatial resolution | City boundary, county, state, country level |
Functionality for city to make adjustments | Cities can choose the geographic boundary they would like to use for their inventory and do a combined emissions inventory with other cities. Cities can also input their own local data to improve the accuracy of the data outputs. |
Latest accounting year | 2021 |
Frequency of data updates | Annual or depending on client needs |
Units | Metric tonnes (tCO2e). |
Using the tool, data outputs and how it can be exported | Gaia provides total and sector-level annual emissions data for cities. The output can be exported in alignment with the GPC as an excel file and can be directly inputted into a GPC-aligned inventory. The tool allows cities to adjust or improve the accuracy of the output by including their own local data. To access the tool, the city should contact Enersis directly. |
Import into CDP-ICLEI Track | Currently no functionality to import data into CDP-ICLEI Track |
Additional tool functionalities | The Gaia module also helps cities with climate action planning by identifying potential areas for climate action across the building, transport and energy sectors. |