%0 Journal Article %T Under-reporting of greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities %+ Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette] (LSCE) %A Gurney, Kevin Robert %A Liang, Jianming %A Roest, Geoffrey %A Song, Yang %A Mueller, Kimberly %A Lauvaux, Thomas %< avec comité de lecture %@ 2041-1723 %J Nature Communications %I Nature Publishing Group %V 12 %8 2021 %D 2021 %Z 2021NatCo..12..553G %R 10.1038/s41467-020-20871-0 %Z Sciences of the Universe [physics]Journal articles %X Cities dominate greenhouse gas emissions. Many have generated self-reported emission inventories, but their value to emissions mitigation depends on their accuracy, which remains untested. Here, we compare self-reported inventories from 48 US cities to independent estimates from the Vulcan carbon dioxide emissions data product, which is consistent with atmospheric measurements. We found that cities under-report their own greenhouse gas emissions, on average, by 18.3% (range: -145.5% to +63.5%) - a difference which if extrapolated to all U.S. cities, exceeds California's total emissions by 23.5%. Differences arise because city inventories omit particular fuels and source types and estimate transportation emissions differently. These results raise concerns about self-reported inventories in planning or assessing emissions, and warrant consideration of the new urban greenhouse gas information system recently developed by the scientific community. %G English %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-03721920/document %2 https://insu.hal.science/insu-03721920/file/s41467-020-20871-0.pdf %L insu-03721920 %U https://insu.hal.science/insu-03721920 %~ CEA %~ INSU %~ CNRS %~ UVSQ %~ CEA-UPSAY %~ LSCE %~ UNIV-PARIS-SACLAY %~ LSCE-CEA %~ UVSQ-UPSACLAY %~ UNIVERSITE-PARIS-SACLAY %~ GS-ENGINEERING %~ GS-GEOSCIENCES %~ GS-BIOSPHERA %~ INSTITUT-SCIENCES-LUMIERE