Description | Climate change causes a number of environmental mechanisms that affect both the endpoint human health and ecosystem health. Climate change models are in general developed to assess the future environmental impact of different policy scenarios. Greenhouse gases emission indicators encompass a variety of measurements on the emission and concentration of Greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are those gaseous constituents of the atmosphere, both natural and anthropogenic, that absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths within the spectrum of thermal infrared radiation emitted by the Earth‘s surface, the atmosphere itself, and by clouds. This property causes the greenhouse effect. This indicator measures the emissions of the six main GHGs which have a direct impact on climate change. This indicator aim to quantify the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) avoided as a result of implementation of NBS. GHG emissions through NBS can be avoided through reduced consumption of heating and cooling energy demands at building scale for instance. The extend of GHG emissions is one of the most widely used life cycle impact assessment indicators and the amount avoided is usually employed during scenario comparisons - The total amount of Greenhouse gas emissions avoided as a result of implementation of specific NBS.
- Comparison with calculations of carbon consumption of equivalent non-NBS actions (e.g. through Life Cycle Assessment).
- A close relation to energy consumption at building scale.
- Calculation of avoided GHG emissions (Pan et al., 2016).
- Improve comfort in buildings and at street level through increased energy savings at building and street level by the insulating effect of plants (Alexandri and Jones, 2008; Zinzi and Agnoli, 2011; Malys, 2016).
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Scale as linked to D2.2 framework | - National
- City
- Neighbourhood
- Project area
- Street
- Building
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Data source [ link to data framework] | - Data collected manually by the project personnel.
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Data Needs | - A net additional area of green roof
- % building(s) air-conditioned
- Yearly air conditioning use
- the kilometre per person transport in the area
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Expected Outputs | |
Calculation methods | To calculate the avoided GHG emissions through building cooling, GI-Val is used. The data resolution is a building. Required data are: - A net additional area of green roof
- % building(s) air-conditioned
- Yearly air conditioning use
Method to calculate avoided GHG emissions through transportation is: - 1. Suitable available data source measuring the kilometre per person transport in the area should be identified, preferentially giving estimates of consumption of gasoline, diesel, ethanol and natural gas, the most common fuels used in car and rail transport (IPCC, 2006; Toledo & Rovere, 2018).
- 2. These consumed fuels, as well as potential consumed electricity by electrified rail systems, are converted to emission using emission factors for different fuels. Preferred method is to locate country specific net-calorific-values and CO2-emission factors, when available, but general default values are presented (IPCC, 2006).
- 3. CO2 emissions related to vehicle traffic are calculated as follows:
 - Emission factors for fuels, adapted from IPCC 2006 Guidelines Vol 2. Tables 1.2 & 1.4. (IPCC, 2006):
| | Petrol | Diesel | Ethanol | Natural Gas | | t CO2/ t fuel | 3.07 | 3.19 | 1.91 | 2.69 |
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Links and references | - Goedkoop, M., Heijungs, R., Huijbergts, M., Schryver, A.D., Struijs, J., van Zelm, R., 2009. ReCiPe 2008 A life cycle impact assessment method which comprises harmonised category indicators at the midpoint and the endpoint level First edition Report I: Characterisation. URL: https://www.leidenuniv.nl/cml/ssp/publications/recipe_char acterisation.pdf Date of access: November 2017.
- Gerdes, H., Bassi, S., Portale, E., Mazza, L., Srebotnjak, T., Porch, L., 2011. In Stream, D2.2 Final Report: Evaluation of Indicators for EU Policy Objectives. URL: https://www.ecologic.eu/sites/files/publication/2016/1901- final-report-d2-2-evaluation-of-indicators-for-eu-policy objectives.pdf Date of access: November 2017.
- https://ghgprotocol.org/calculation-tools
- https://www.merseyforest.org.uk/services/gi-val/
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