Reporting

Guidance for Councils on meeting GCoM commitments

As a signatory to the Global Covenant of Mayors, Councils have a recommended process for reporting their climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

Reporting follows a methodology known as the common reporting framework. It includes a common reporting language for measuring emissions and reporting climate action. This helps to ensure data is consistent and comparable between cities and allows for the amalgamation of city data, which can then be used to better inform policy decisions. Whilst this reporting framework aims to enable comparison, it is intended to remain flexible to meet specific local or regional needs. As such, GCoM Oceania has implemented some regional variation to the recommendations to better meet the needs of local government in this region. 

View the Common Reporting Framework

While councils are encouraged to follow this reporting journey, they may also have their own planning cycles, priorities and timelines that may take priority over reporting. Councils can also start reporting based on their own needs and priorities.

1. Register with ICLEI-CDP reporting platform

As a GCoM council, you may have been sent an invitation to report using the ICLEI-CDP reporting platform.

If you have not received an invitation to report, you may submit your own registration using the link below. If you are experiencing any difficulty with registration, please contact us.

The ICLEI-CDP reporting platform has been designed to enable cities to report for a number of different initiatives using a unified reporting system. During the registration process, you will need to select that you are reporting for GCoM along with any other initiative you may wish to report for.

Once you have selected the initiatives you are reporting for, a questionnaire will be generated with all the questions for GCoM as well as additional questions relating to CDP Cities reporting. Should your city wish to be given a score using the CDP scoring methodology, you will need to report to all questions in the questionnaire by the CDP deadline. However, this is not a requirement for GCoM.

In order to report to GCoM, you will need to answer a set of preliminary questions: 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 & 0.6.

View preliminary questions

You will then report for any or all of the stages below, depending on your council’s own priorities:

  • Mitigation Inventory – questions 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.3a, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6a, 4.6b, 4.15
  • Mitigation Target – questions 5.0, 5.2, 5.3
  • Mitigation Plan – questions 5.4, 5.5
  • Adaptation Assessment – questions 2.0, 2.0B, 2.1, 2.2
  • Adaptation Goal – question 3.3
  • Adaptation Plan – questions 3.0, 3.2, 3.2a

 

In the following section, we will outline what is required for each of these stages.

CDP Scoring Methodology

2. Take Action

Although GCoM has a suggested timeline, we understand that every local government has their own set of circumstances, timelines and priorities. As such, councils can select to report on any of the following activities depending on their circumstances.

Mitigation

Emissions inventory

In order to be awarded the mitigation inventory badge, a local government must submit an emissions inventory based on the recognised emission reporting methodology outlined in The Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GPC). The GPC provides a robust framework for accounting and reporting municipality-wide greenhouse gas emissions in a way that ensures consistency, enabling some levels of comparison and amalgamation between city data.

 
View the GPC
Read the guidelines for inventory reporting
Relevant questions – 4.0, 4,1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.3a, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6A, 4.6B
View questions

Mitigation targets

All councils and cities must register a municipality-wide emission reduction target. These targets must be at least as ambitious as their national target.
Read the Guideline for Setting Target

The GHG Protocol’s Mitigation Goal Standards provides guidance for designing mitigation goals, and a standardised approach for assessing and reporting progress toward goal achievement.

It’s a valuable tool to help identify and determine your targets.

View Mitigation Goal Standards
Relevant questions – 5.0, 5.2, 5.3
View questions

Mitigation plan

The final step in mitigation is develop a climate change mitigation plan, this can be part of a combined climate plan or a stand alone document.
Guidelines for plans
Relevant questions – 5.4, 5.5
View questions

Adaptation

Risk and Vunerability Assessment

In order to develop an adaptation strategy, one must first identify the potential climate hazards which are likely to impact a local government area, identifying potential vulnerabilities and priorities in adaptation response.

Read guidelines for assessment

Relevant questions – 2.0, 2.0B, 2.1, 2.2

View questions
View existing risk assessments in your region

Adaptation Goal

Once vulnerabilities are identified, the local government can then set a number of adaptation goals.
Relevant questions – 3.3
View question

Adaptation Plan

Using its risk and vulnerability assessment as a basis, a local government can develop a strategy to reduce its vulnerability to known climate hazards. This adaptation strategy is the final badge in adaptation. It can be reported either as a stand alone document or as combined climate plan together with its climate mitigation plan.
Guidelines for plans
Relevant questions 3.0, 3.2, 3.2a
View questions

Feedback and amendment

Once a council has submitted its report to the CDP-ICLEI Unified reporting platform, CDP and ICLEI will assess the submissions against the guidelines outlined in the common reporting framework and send feedback to councils. Councils are then given an opportunity to amend their submission before a final round of assessments and the attribution of badges.

3. Monitoring and Review

Once a council has completed all stages above, it is regarded as compliant and has reached the monitoring phase.

At this point, it will submit monitoring reports on a regular basis, this will include:

  • updating emission inventories.
  • updating targets and plans where relevant.
  • providing information on the implementation status of each action outlined in its action plans.

3. Energy Access Plans

Energy access refers to facilitating access to secure, sustainable and affordable energy, inline with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

GCoM is currently developing guidelines for energy access plans to be included in the common reporting framework.

As such, at this stage, we recommend that councils consider developing energy access plan taking into consideration the following:

(1) Access to secure energy – reducing energy demand through improved energy efficiency and energy management; diversifying their energy mix, reducing excess reliance on a single source and emphasising a diversity of renewable energy sources; reducing dependence on imported energy.

(2) Access to sustainable energy – Prioritising renewable energy and energy efficiency when providing energy into new locations, providing access to renewable energy and energy efficiency opportunities to residents and communities, expanding decentralised energy distribution systems.

(3) Access to affordable energy – Although energy affordability is typically beyond the local government’s purview. Local government can influence the affordability of energy through a range of interventions – such as local policies, energy management, the use of subsidies or other mechanisms like incentives to promote renewable energy systems or energy efficiency measures.

5. Resources

The following documents will help you keep track of the questions required for GCoM compliance and provide the associated guidelines which are outlined in the Common Reporting framework.
Summary of mandatory questions for GCoM compliance

This document outlines all the questions that you may need to answer for GCoM compliance. Please note, not all these questions will appear in your questionnaire as some questions are contingent on your answers. Answer any of these questions if they appear in your questionnaire.

CDP Cities Questionnaire 2020
Complete CDP Cities questionnaire that you will respond to when reporting using the ICLEI-CDP reporting platform. All mandatory GCoM questions are highlighted. Please note your questionnaire may vary depending on your answers.
Common Reporting Framework

Reports and Publications

Global covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Annual Report 2019

Identifying strategic partnerships for the implementation of the Paris agreement

Other resources