By 2050, an estimated 70% of the world’s population – and 86% in OECD countries – will live in urban areas. Moreover, population growth is faster in low-density suburbs than in urban centres, especially in large metropolitan cities. With this estimated increase in urban population and even higher increase in built up area, urban patterns are becoming central in the regulation of CO2 emissions globally. Our hypothesis is that urban fragmentation at the metropolitan level will significantly influence CO2 emissions – specifically through an increase in the use of motorized transportation - and thus the general performance of a country in terms of their efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations towards climate mitigation. However, there is a lack of available global and comparable data on both urban metrics and CO2 emissions. This study attempts a first step at filling this gap by setting up a global geodatabase and theoretical framework to feed the study of the relationship between urban form and CO2 emissions at a homogenously defined urban level.