On June 1, 1998, the Rio de Janeiro Mayor's Office officially joined the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) International Campaign run by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), whose objectives are to reduce the current trend towards planet-wide warming while upgrading the quality of life in cities.

This Campaign brings toguether cities eager to draw up and implement plans that reduce the growth of energy consumption and emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the City of Rio de Janeiro was designed as the first step towards the implementation of the Climate Protection Campaign. Its preparation was assigned to a group of experts in this field at the Centre for Integrated Studies on Climate Change and the Environment, Centro Clima, a research center of the Alberto Luiz Institute for Postgraduate Studies and Research in Engineering - COPPE of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ. Technical Staff at Centro Clima developed a specific methodology tailored to the characteristics of the City of Rio de Janeiro. The starting point for drawing up this inventory was the methodology presented in 1996 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was officially adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Additional methodological adjustments were introduced according to the approach followed by the National Communication to the Climate Convention of the Brazilian Inventory of Anthropic Emissions by Sources and Removal by Greenhouse Gas Sinks not Controlled by the Montreal Protocol coordinated by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Based on the results of this study, analyzing the emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from the City of Rio de Janeiro, actions in the fields of energy, industry, garbadge disposal, transportation, land use, forests and agriculture can all be guided in ways that help reduce these emissions.