Tool: Klimaschutz Planer

Klimaschutz-Planer is an online map-based tool provided by Climate Alliance, one of the world’s largest city networks taking local action on climate change. The tool allows municipalities to monitor final energy consumption and GHG emissions. In addition, it incorporates climate action planning functionalities, including benchmark and scenario planning modules. The Klimaschutz-Planer was developed by Climate Alliance e.V., the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Heidelberg, and Institute for Decentralized Energy Technologies (IdE) in collaboration with dozens of municipalities and monitoring experts. The project was funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB).

Specifications

Suitable for which city climate journey stage?	Establishing an emissions baseline
Tool strengths	- Designed to provide highly significant local energy consumption and emission inventories (tool prioritises collection of local activity data vs downscaling from national datasets) - GHG emissions data is integrated into climate action planning tool - Developed and enhanced with the help and including the needs of municipal users - Interconnections with other web-based tools of Climate Alliance, e.g. the https://klimaschutz-praxis.de/ (Climate Alliance’s platform for municipal project communication and documentation)
Tool limitations	- Not disaggregated by emissions scope - Not aligned with the GPC and CR - Does not cover waste emissions - Currently only available for cities in Germany and the German-speaking Community, known since 2017 as East Belgium
Geographic location/countries	Germany
Language	German
Accessibility	Pay to use
Methodology	The tool prioritises using local activity data where available. Data gaps are filled in with estimates and downscaled national data. Data sources include national statistics, transport data, and census data for building age and heating type. Emissions are calculated in alignment with the BISKO municipal accounting standard for calculating energy and GHG emissions balances for municipalities in Germany.
Documentation of methodology	Tool documentation is not publicly available but documentation of the BISKO methodology is publicly available in German language in long and short formats.
Data quality/verified by 3rd party	Data quality is assessed from high to low based on whether it comes from locally measured sources or is downscaled from national datasets. The data used is not verified by a third party.
Alignment with global standards and protocols (eg GPC and CRF )	Due to missing data on a municipal level, the methodology (BISKO) used cannot be aligned with the GPC and CRF.
Emissions scopes	Not disaggregated by emissions scope
GHGs	CO2, CH4, N2O
Sectors included	Transport, private households, municipal facilities, business, trade and services, and industry
Scopes, GHGs and sectors excluded	GHGs: HFCs, PFCs, SF6, NF3. Sectors: Waste, IPPU and AFOLU.
Temporal resolution	Annual
Spatial resolution	City boundary
Functionality for city to make adjustments	The tool allows cities to adjust or improve the accuracy of the output by including their own local data where available. A minimum of municipal input is needed in order to generate an output.
Latest accounting year	2021
Frequency of data updates	Annual
Units	MWh and metric tonnes (tCO2e)
Using the tool, data outputs and how it can be exported	Municipalities can access pre-populated data on population, energy consumption for travel, manufacturing and building data (age and type of heating) in the tool. The tool uses this data to estimate total emissions for each municipality. Cities can import and export data as an excel file. The data in the tool is not aligned with the GPC and CRF and not disaggregated by emissions scope, therefore the local government would need to undertake a mapping between the sectors in the tool and the GPC, including identifying the relevant emissions scopes, to be able to input the data into GPC or CRF format. Cities would need to combine this data with additional data on their waste emissions to develop a full, comprehensive inventory.
Additional tool functionalities	The tool includes additional climate action scenario analysis and benchmarking functionalities