Cities are on the front lines of climate change impacts. One possible solution to address the impacts is to reduce or prevent emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). An inventory is usually the first step taken by cities that want to mitigate their GHG emissions. City inventories are essential for identifying major emission sources, tracking emission trends, building mitigation strategies, and assessing progress. In 2011, the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has created a protocol called Guideline for Taiwanese City-Scale GHG Inventories, offering guidance and ensuring consistency for city-wide GHG accounting. Furthermore, the Taiwan EPA launched a voluntary reporting platform in 2012 called City-Scale Carbon Disclosure and Registry, providing public access for cities to disclose their GHG emissions. This year we reviewed recent development of global city networks and updates of city GHG inventory methodology, employing these research outcomes to improve the current city GHG inventory mechanism and management practice in Taiwan. Specifically, we completed 2012-2014 city-scale GHG inventories for all 22 cities/ counties in Taiwan this year, assessing emission trends and possible factors affecting emissions. Taiwan’s per capita emissions average about 12 metric tons of CO2e. Yunlin emit more than double the country average per person (>25 MtCO2e), while Kinmen’s per capita emissions are only one-fourth of the country average (<3 MtCO2e). Despite Taiwan’s total electricity use has been increasing, the growth in industrial electricity use for the majority of cities/counties has been slowing during 2012-2014. Furthermore, we developed insights on the content and framework of Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction and Management Act, passed in June 2014, and pointed out its possible concurrences with GHG management at both central and local government levels. This year we evaluated socioeconomic factors affecting emissions, constructed a regression model for simulating and predicting city emissions, and completed emission predictions for Taipei City and Kaohsiung City through 2030. Also, we proposed a city-level climate change disclosure criteria, and compared and ranked climate efforts disclosed by four selected cities using the proposed criteria. Furthermore, we provided maintenance and kept enhancing functions of the City-Scale Carbon Disclosure and Registry Platform. Another solution to fight climate change is adaptation efforts in cities. In 2012, the National Development Council (NDC) developed a guideline called Guide to Climate Change Adaptation in Cities, helping cities carry out routine implementations. A total of 21 cities/counties have completed at least one adaptation plan during 2012-2014. While the NDC guideline provides high-level principles on how to develop a city-scale adaptation plan, it does not address specific materials, methodologies, and tools for each step of the adaptation planning. To address this limitation, this year we employed the TaiCCAT (Taiwan integrated research program on climate change adaptation technology) six-steps, developed by the Ministry of Science and Technology, to assist New Taipei City in implementing rolling wave planning, including problems and objectives identification, current and future risk assessment, adaptation option assessment, adaptation pathway planning, as well as monitoring and modification. Two health- and one water resource-related problems were identified. In response, we proposed seven and four strengthen strategies for the identified health and water resource problems, respectively. The strategies were prioritized by multi-criteria analysis to formulate adaptation pathways. Accordingly, we suggested in the short run (2016-2021) New Taipei City adopt early-warning system for health risks and rainwater catchment systems for residential use. In the future, we suggested the Taiwan EPA integrate multi-level governance considerations into the framework of the city-level adaptation management. A total of 14 training courses and 41 briefing sessions for local government employees and city GHG inventory practitioners have been offered during 2012-2015, with more than 3,600 participants in total. In 2016, we organized two training courses and helped two cities/counties hold three trainings for GHG inventories, with 680 participants in total. Furthermore, we hosted a forum in December, inviting local government employees and city GHG inventory practitioners to exchange their knowledge and experiences. It is expected that the outcome of our efforts could form a strong foundation for promoting city-scale GHG inventories and climate change adaptation strategies in Taiwan.

Greenhouse Gas, City Greenhouse Gas Inventory, Carbon Disclosure, Climate Change Adaptation, Capacity Building