Center for Neighborhood Technology has been conducting research and developing and testing innovative programs to use urban resources more efficiently for almost 30 years. These efforts inevitably relate to the growing concerns about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slowing global warming.
CNT’s research has shown that cities can be the most efficient places to live, with their lower per capita greenhouse gas emissions due to efficient land use and transportation alternatives. Because urban areas are compact and have extensive mass transit and communication networks, they offer the greatest opportunities to help solve the climate crisis by expanding and enhancing their existing strategies for reducing carbon emissions.
Learn more about our research and steps you can take to help improve the environment by checking out our current projects at right.
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
The City of Chicago launched its Chicago Climate Action Plan Thursday at the Shedd Aquarium with the backdrop of the city skyline and blue skies. The release is a major milestone for CNT’s climate change work. CNT led the mitigation research team for the Chicago Climate Change Task Force that developed the report.
Since climate change touches every aspect of our city and all of CNT’s program areas, the project involved over 20 CNT staff members. We were excited to be able to provide a solid foundation of data and analysis for Chicago’s Climate Action Plan and look forward to working to transform it from a plan to action. The emissions reduction strategies we have helped develop are truly sustainable solutions that can lower the cost of living and doing business in Chicago while making this a better city to live and work in.
CNT developed a greenhouse gas inventory for Chicago in 2000 and 2005, which allowed us to understand better where Chicago’s emissions come from. Chicago emitted a total of 34.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2000, which is 12 tons per person. We found that 70% of those emissions are from energy use, including electricity and natural gas consumption. Transportation was the second largest source of emissions, accounting for 21% in 2000. The remaining emissions come from waste, wastewater, non-energy emissions from industrial processes, and the use of greenhouse gases in products, such as air conditioners.
We also projected Chicago’s emissions out to 2020 and 2050. If Chicago takes no action to address its climate impact, its emissions could grow to 39.3 MMTCO2e in 2020. We worked with the Task Force to help set a goal of reducing emissions to 24.2 MMTCO2e in 2020 - an amount that is 25% below 1990 levels and 15.1 MMTCO2e below the ‘business as usual’ scenario.
To meet this reduction target will require action in every sector of Chicago, including residents, businesses, institutions, and government. CNT worked with the City to solicit emissions reduction strategies from these stakeholders. We received hundreds of suggestions and boiled them down into a portfolio of feasible, effective, and sustainable strategies for Chicago. We then analyzed 33 strategies both quantitatively and qualitatively to determine emission reduction potentials, the nature and scale of the programs and policies necessary, similar current activities underway in Chicago and the region that could be built on, examples of successful programs from other areas, and implementation opportunities and barriers. These strategies evolved to form the basis of the City’s Climate Action Plan.
Some of the strategies are things we each can do individually, such as walking and taking transit. Many others are programs and investments that we will have to work together to accomplish, such as stabilizing public transit funding and building high speed rail. We are already working to implement some of the strategies, such as developing programs to help building owners more easily retrofit their buildings to use less energy and water and save on utility bills. The strategies will require hard work and innovation, but can generate measurable benefits for Chicago in terms of greenhouse gas reductions, economic opportunity and more.
It is our intention to make our work available to others to serve as a model for the type of comprehensive emission reduction plan cities can undertake. Our methods and results are overviewed in the Summary Report and in the full 267 page report. The City’s Climate Action Plan can be found at www.chicagoclimateaction.org.
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Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 11:14 am
A recent Harris poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans want the next President to initiate strong action on climate change. The nationwide poll shows that 4 in 10 Americans agree that if action is not taken to address global warming and climate change, the country’s national security will be threatened by global instability.
The Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) commissioned the poll, in an ongoing series to directly measure American opinion on the urgency of Presidential action on climate change. The poll was taken as the National Intelligence Council issued the first-ever National Intelligence Assessment on the link between global climate change and the nation’s security.
Americans report increasing levels of awareness of each of the Presidential candidate’s climate change/global warming policies. According to the poll, 35% of respondents believe that Senator Obama offers the strongest policy on climate change. Half as many respondents (17%) believe that McCain offers a stronger climate change policy.
The poll also found that respondents from the West coast remain the most likely to ascribe a higher level of importance to the urgency question, women are more likely to believe it is important that the next President takes strong action to address climate change, and younger voters from Generations Y and X are particularly likely to believe that strong action is extremely or very important.
In December, PCAP developed the Presidential Climate Action Plan, framing the agenda for the first 100 days of the next Administration. The plan was developed by a broad group of leaders from around the nation, and is the most comprehensive and detailed plan for national climate action presented to the presidential candidates and the American people. CNT’s research and expertise in transportation, land use, and climate change formed the basis of the plan’s transportation agenda. Additionally, CNT President Scott Bernstein serves on the Steering Committee of the Presidential Climate Action Project, bringing CNT’s deep understanding of sustainable, measurable, place-based solutions with net economic benefits to this monumental project.
More information on the Presidential Climate Action Project here.
Read the full press release on the new national poll.
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Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Chicago is not the only city considering the value of multi-modal transport in an urban environment. New research is coming out that agrees with and builds on what CNT advocates: eliminating auto dependency is a key to cleaner, less congested and more livable cities.
WorldChanging editor Alex Steffen recently wrote in BusinessWeek that cities are “a smart alternative to cars”, and that the key to reducing emissions lies not in new auto technology, but in cities that eliminate the need to be constantly driving.
The fundamental issue is an overdependence on vehicles to get from here to there, resulting in the nation’s increasing congestion problems and rising greenhouse gas emissions. This paradigm means that efforts at making vehicles more fuel efficient—while important because vehicles cannot be eliminated—does not properly focus on the solution of reducing vehicle dependency altogether. As Mr. Steffen puts it, “The best car-related innovation we have is not to improve the car but to eliminate the need to drive it everywhere we go.”
After all, as one sits in congestion, amongst a seemingly infinite amount of vehicles, on a finite amount of space, is the point to be wasting time in a car that gets better fuel efficiency? Or can we delve deeper into solutions—reducing the use of cars, whenever possible? The new issue of the Chicago Reporter, “Jammed” looks at the driving habits of Chicagoland residents. And it becomes clear that the region is “at capacity” for more people and more cars at farther and longer trips, which is the direction the region is headed. With some commuters spending 20 hours a week just driving to and from their jobs; others spending hundreds on gas each week, it seems the problem cannot be solved in the car.
In 2007, rides on the Regional Transportation Authority system—which includes the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace—made up just 5.6 percent of all trips taken in the six-county Chicago region, according to a study by Chicago Metropolis 2020. Some advocates say the figure needs to be more than twice that in order to sustain the region long-term. It seems the most important fixes are to build off of the increasing trend of using alternate ways to get around, while also focusing on making that shift easier by developing or redeveloping, using infill development and infrastructure investments to transform existing medium-low density neighborhoods into walkable compact communities.
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