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It is central for climate policy to understand, monitor and forecast greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, generating insights on the key factors and actions with a greater impact to mitigate and adapt to global warming. Focusing on the leading role of cities, it is relevant to build robust and reliable GHG emissions prospects for every city committing to mitigate and adapt to climate change. In this paper, a novel methodology is proposed to build those prospects, presenting a case study with 6231 EU-27 cities and local municipalities taken from the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM). Key GHG emissions predictors for the target years of 2020 and 2030 refer to the baseline energy consumption and associated GHG emissions, as well as the population and the national emissions per capita trend. Additionally, other informative predictors are the baseline inventory year, the reduction target, the disaggregated baseline emissions by type of fuel (fossils or renewables), the heating and cooling degree days and the NUTS urban/rural categorization. The proposed methodology allows assessing the cities' achievements based on their expected performance, and it could be further implemented to support new cities willing to commit to a significant reduction of their GHG emissions. • A robust methodology is proposed to predict GHG emissions for cities committing to climate change mitigation and adaptation. • Key predictors refer to local, regional and national sources of information. • A case study is performed with 6231 European cities: 2030 commitments are expected to achieve a 40 % GHG emissions reduction. • The models described in this paper provide useful information to urban policy makers in the climate action planning process. • The results are replicable in the context of transnational initiatives involving cities in the fight against climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas play a pivotal role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to adverse effects of climate change, worldwide. Climate-related assessment of urban development projects shall contribute to reduce complex climate vulnerability, especially in fast growing cities in emerging economies. Hungarian cities face significant challenges regarding changing climatic patterns, consequently climate-oriented assessment methodology to evaluate the performance of urban development interventions is needed. The main aim of the research was to elaborate on a comprehensive methodology that can define mitigation, adaptation, and awareness-raising aspects of interventions; moreover may reveal path dependencies in order to avoid negative lock-ins during urban development activities. The developed method uses a three-step scoring approach to assess both direct and indirect impacts of selected interventions while taking into account the main objectives of the Budapest Climate Change Strategy as evaluation criteria in order to strengthen local-specific characters. By applying the developed methodology, the main conclusions can be defined by paying attention to weaknesses and strengths of the selected interventions regarding mitigation, adaptation, and awareness-raising issues; thus, further recommendations were identified to improve their overall climate performance and to avoid negative lock-ins. • Analysis of urban development actions is crucial in avoiding negative lock-ins. • The developed method uses a three-step scoring approach to assess both the direct and indirect impacts of selected interventions. • Further recommendations were identified to improve their overall climate performance and to avoid negative lock-ins. • The recommendations made in the present paper may support the decision making processes during the whole life cycle of planned actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]