Cities fess up to emissions with new project

A cool new leg of a nonprofit is helping cities reduce their emissions across the board by linking cities’ emissions data to its effect on climate change. In all, 21 cities are starting out reporting their emissions data to the Carbon Disclosure Project, including some biggies like New York, Las Vegas, and New Orleans. They will describe their major sources of greenhouse gas emissions to the project, which compiles the info. and publishes reports.

The project isn’t a see-how-much-these-cities-suck type of effort, but rather a look-at-where-we-are effort that gets people talking about what has become the c-word: Change. The cities are voluntarily supplying their info. so that they can make changes.

I don’t know if it’s just because I’m in California, but as I watch the Olympics (non-stop since they started), I’ve noticed that every single commercial break includes at least two renewable energy commercials. Renewable energy and “going green” are trendy. And to see cities heading in to projects like this show that it is actually moving beyond trendy and niche-y, into serious analysis, accountability, and action. And that is needed.

"Over 70% of total global emissions are generated from cities, and if you don't measure these emissions, you cannot manage them," said Paul Dickinson, CEO of Carbon Disclosure Project, in a statement.

The project has been collecting corporate emissions info since 2003, and moving on to cities is a great expansion. The results of this city info. collection will be published in January and will help us see what’s going on in cities and start up dialogues about what can be changed now and in the future.

The other cities participating in the Carbon Disclosure Project are Albany, NY; Albuquerque, NM; Anchorage, AR.; Arlington, VA.; Burlington, VT.; Denver, CO; Dubuque, IA; Edina and St. Paul, MN; Fairfield, IA; Haverford, PA; North Little Rock, AR.; Pacific Grove and Rohnert Park, CA; Park City, UT; Portland, OR.; Washougal, WA.; and West Palm Beach, FL.

Via Cnet