Vol. 7 | No .2 | Spring 2008
Climate Action in Your Hometown
While comprehensive climate legislation continues to stall on Capitol Hill, more and more individuals, businesses, and municipalities are taking action to reduce their contribution to global warming. These efforts are often guided by a climate action plan (CAP), which measures a household, company, or town’s heat-trapping emissions and presents strategies for reducing those emissions.
The first step is determining a baseline year against which future emissions (measured in tons of heat-trapping gases emitted annually) will be compared. CAPs typically measure emissions from electricity, natural gas, and heating oil use; transportation; and solid waste generation. For a state or town, these emissions are further divided into residential, commercial, and municipal sectors.
Once the baseline emissions inventory is completed, strategies are developed for reducing emissions from different sectors. The options are virtually limitless: a town with high residential transportation emissions, for example, could consider launching a local shuttle service, while a town with high emissions related to electricity use might offer residents and business owners a financial incentive to conserve energy. After a few years, the town would update its emissions inventory to measure the effectiveness of these strategies and explore new initiatives to further reduce emissions.
Crunching the Numbers
More than 150 U.S. cities and towns have committed to implementing a CAP. One of these is Belmont, MA, a Boston suburb with about 25,000 residents. As a member of the nonprofit association ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability, Belmont received analytical software that helps the town calculate its emissions inventory. Towns do not have to join ICLEI to create a CAP but Belmont considers the modest population-based membership fee ($600 annually in its case) well worth the emissions software, guidance, and resources ICLEI provides.
Sustainable Belmont, a group of environmentally concerned volunteers that works closely with town officials, has been overseeing the CAP since the plan’s inception in fall 2005. The group initially received valuable assistance from local graduate students who, as part of an internship, collected emissions data for the chosen baseline year of 2001 from the local electric and natural gas utilities, regional waste incineration facilities, and state transportation and public transit authorities. Members of Sustainable Belmont have continued compiling data since then, filling in gaps where the graduate students’ data were incomplete and conducting surveys to obtain more robust information on variables for which local and state offices can provide only a rough estimate, such as town employee commuting habits and business operations.
As Catalyst went to press, Sustainable Belmont was finalizing its baseline inventory and formulating both short- and long-term recommendations for the town. The group’s goal of reducing emissions 80 percent below 2001 levels by 2050 is consistent with the U.S. target recommended by many in the scientific community (including UCS) as the minimum reduction needed to avoid the most dangerous consequences of global warming.
Give Everyone a Voice
Because reducing global warming emissions is a responsibility shared by the entire community, a CAP should outline ways for every citizen to participate. This spring, Sustainable Belmont is holding public forums to educate homeowners, businesses, and community leaders on the town’s collective climate impact and to reach agreement on the solutions. This extra step takes time, but by demonstrating public support for the CAP among different interest groups, decision makers are more likely to approve the plan and implement its recommendations. To find out how to begin a CAP in your community, visit the ICLEI website at http://www.iclei-usa.org. ■
Heather Tuttle is assistant editor at UCS and co-chair of Sustainable Belmont.
