Carbon Neutrality: Dream or Reality?
How does a city go about becoming carbon neutral? Communities in the Puget Sound are tackling the challenge of significant carbon reduction and looking at whether carbon neutrality is possible.
This Climate Solutions program is no longer active.
In 2016, Climate Solutions completed the seventh and final year of our successful New Energy Cities program. Combining research on urban carbon reduction best practices and partnering with Northwest cities and counties, we helped local communities accelerate carbon emissions reduction through climate and clean energy goal-setting, clean energy transition planning, policy development, program design, and implementation.
Our New Energy Cities program continued to work with the King County-Cities Climate Collaboration (K4C), a voluntary coalition of King County and 13 cities united in their goal to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 supporting efforts to get underway with achieving its 90% renewable electricity by 2030. New Energy Cities formed a partnership with Stockholm Environment Institute to provide energy maps and carbon wedge analyses for Everett, WA (Snohomish County) and Olympia, WA (Thurston County). Our existing partnership with Tukwila, WA showed encouraging progress, with city leadership and staff eager to make deep carbon reductions in their community.
Climate Solutions is proud of New Energy Cities and its seven years of success. Although we phased out the program at the end of 2016, Climate Solutions will continue to help our city and county partners create political momentum to inform policy and drive carbon emissions reduction at the state and regional levels.
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How does a city go about becoming carbon neutral? Communities in the Puget Sound are tackling the challenge of significant carbon reduction and looking at whether carbon neutrality is possible.
The United Kingdom's Green Deal program has much to teach the United States about how to create a successful energy efficiency retrofit program.
While cleaning up sites such as capped landfills, abandoned mines, and former industrial properties can be pricey, converting them into renewable energy generating capacity may help make the investment pay back over time.
Installed solar capacity in Boise, ID increased to two megawatts in 2011, and is nearing three megawatts in 2012.
It is well known that cities adopted greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets consistent with the Kyoto Protocol. Lesser known is the work that cities have done in the intervening years to make the projects happen that would achieve those targets.
Powering the New Energy Future from the Ground Up profiles a diverse set of 34 communities with populations under 250,000 and found that U.S. communities are pioneering a wide range of clean energy solutions in energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric vehicles, and carbon-reducing transportation strategies.
Small- and Medium-Sized Communities Innovate on Clean-Energy and Efficiency Programs
Hillsboro, OR, Boise, ID, and Issaquah, WA joined the New Energy Cities community in Spring 2012
Recently, many cities have begun taking another look at district energy to address their energy challenges. Whether they are championing strategies to secure energy supplies, insulate themselves from price instability, or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cities are finding district energy can do all of these simultaneously.
Why are we so afraid of carbon pricing? Whenever this topic is raised, people get tense, nervous, or outraged out of all proportion to the actual impact that putting a price on carbon would have for most of us.