Re/Action on Climate Protection

New Orleans - America's First Zero Carbon City?

Musing about the possibilities in rebuilding New Orleans:

Wouldn't it be an amazing statement to rebuild New Orleans as America's first zero net carbon city?

• All electric power derived from renewable sources
• New housing so tightly integrated with services that individual cars not required
• Car-free downtown
• All municipal transportation systems powered by renewably generated electric power or biofuels
• New housing all net zero carbon
• Any carbon emitted during construction is offset by tree planting and wetland restoration and/or investment in new renewably powered energy generation

This would be a concrete statement to the rest of the world that America cares about global warming and the need to transition to a zero carbon economy. It would show that the richest nation on earth has heard the wakeup call and is ready to join the rest of humanity in solving global warming.

Write to the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans and suggest it. No, demand it! Write to your senators and representatives to urge them to earmark the federal dollars for the reconstruction of New Orleans to be used for Green Building, zero net energy government facilities and renewable energy and fuel sources.

Here is what the City of Melbourne, AU is doing:

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/info.cfm?top=235&pg=1618

Energy Efficiency is Key to Reducing Emissions

Reducing energy use by improving energy efficiency is the most cost effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In California, the state Public Utilities Commission has recognized this and has mandated the collection of a charge on every utility bill of every ratepayer in the state. This charge, known as the Public Goods Charge (PGC), that is intended to fund "public goods research, development and demonstration, and energy efficiency activities, and possibly to support low income assistance programs." This year, the state is funding energy efficiency programs that are developed and administered by the Investor Owned Utilities in the state.

Climate Protection Campaign has partnered with Quantum Consulting, an energy efficiency consulting firm based in Berkeley, CA to develop a PGC funded energy efficiency program. Beginning in 2006, this program will deliver a menu of energy efficiency services to residences, large and small business and governments in Sonoma County. These services include building tuneups, lighting retrofits, efficiency improvements to water and wastewater systems. These are direct install programs, that result in immediate energy savings. This results in greenhouse gas emissions reductions for the communities.

The Sonoma Partnership for Energy Efficiency is groundbreaking because of the focus on greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Sonoma County has set six national precedents for setting greenhouse gas reduction targets in the operations of all municipalities in the county, as well as county government and the community. This achievement was recognized as opening the door for energy efficiency improvements in both government operations and the community.

Here is a description of some of the other partnerships: http://www.pge.com/rebates/alliances/

Climate Protection Campaign White Paper Wiki

Please look at our white paper wiki. Here:

http://climateprotectioncampaign.jot.com

This is a living document that is updated by our authors to reflect the best thinking on local solutions to the climate change crisis.

Please send comments to dave[at]climateprotectioncampaign.org (replace [at] with @)

Achieving Zero Net Carbon

At Climate Protection Campaign, we have developed a strategy called "Carbon Removal". We look at each of the GHG emitting sectors: existing buildings, local energy system, transportation, water/wastewater, solid waste, agriculture, new development and forestry in the context of government, residential, commercial and industrial uses.

We then formulate what must be done to remove carbon emissions completely from each sector. Generally, these actions fall into two categories: demand side and supply side. On the demand side, we have found that energy efficiency measures top the list for fast, cost-effective GHG reductions. On the supply side, we are developing ways to transition our local energy supplies to renewable sources.

In my next few posts, I'll give some examples of the types of measures we are working on. I hope that other folks out there will share their experiences with working toward zero net carbon.

Energy Tracking System

One of our activities over the past year at Climate Protection Campaign has been to set up an energy tracking system for all nine municipalities in Sonoma County, along with the County and the Water Agency. This system allows us to generate reports that show all the electricity and natural gas use by municipal, county and water agency operations. Our database contains five years of historical billing data with usage amount and cost for over 2000 accounts that exist at over 600 physical sites.

We can aggregate by facility type (building, water/wastewater, streetlighting) and by city. We can also show trends in energy use, and show the effect of energy efficiency measures. Using this tool, we can calculate the total GHG emissions due to electricity and natural gas use from city operations. This is the tool we will be using in Sonoma County to track progress toward the GHG reduction goal set by each city. Using this tool, we can also track emissions from fleets, and due to solid waste.

We developed a "data-mining 'bot" to automatically collect billing data for our nine cities from the PG&E website. This requires authorization from the city governments. All of our data collection activities have involved obtaining authorization from the governments for the utility, which then sends us data electronically. We can import the data into the database automatically.

One of our cities is a municipal utility district. The only way they could supply us with billing information was in paper form. They gave us a big box full of paper bills. All of that had to be entered manually.

We do extensive quality control work on the sites associated with the energy consumption data. We verify the address, facility type and square footage. This enables us to report energy efficiency metrics such as kWh/sq ft, or btu/sq ft.

We use a program called Utility Manager Pro. It was developed by Save More Resources

News from Climate Protection Campaign

Climate Protection Campaign has been working with all nine municipalities in Sonoma County, California to:

• create inventories of GHG emissions
• set GHG emissions reduction targets
• create climate action plans (CAP) to reach those targets
• implement the CAPs
• monitor progress

At this date, all of the Sonoma County municipalities, as well as the County government, have completed greenhouse gas inventories. Eight of the nine municipalities, as well as the County government, have set GHG reduction targets for both municipal operations and for the community. The community target being adopted is aggressive: 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2015.

Several of the municipalities have started their climate action plans. The County of Sonoma has nearly completed its plan. Climate Protection Campaign has an energy tracking system in place that contains four years of energy use data for all municipal accounts for all cities in the county. This database is being updated every quarter so that reports can be generated that show energy consumption and GHG emissions for each city.

Action on Climate Protection

Hello, Climate Protection Campaign is launching our blog. This blog is intended to stimulate discussion about what can be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are currently working on projects at the local level, but we advocate action at all levels: local, state, federal and international.

What we want to do in this blog is to discuss solutions. We want to know what is working elsewhere in the world...and we want to share our experiences with what is working here in Sonoma County.

Although we will post articles on science and links to basic climate science, our aim is not primarily to discuss the science of global warming and climate change. We are not climate scientists, but we view the science of global warming as basically settled. We have adopted and endorse the findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which are that:

• The planet is warming
• Most of the warming in the past 100 years is caused by humans (anthropogenic)
• The human activities most responsible for warming are emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and deforestation.
• Emissions of GHGs that are causing global warming are primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels.
• Significant reduction in GHG emissions is necessary to prevent dangerous changes to the global climate.

In addition to the findings of the IPCC, our view is that meaningful reductions must be accomplished as quickly as possible in order to stabilize the level of atmospheric CO2 as low as possible.

We are looking forward to engaging in discussion with you about how to solve the climate crisis.