Greenhouse Gas Reduction Opportunities for Local Governments: A Quantification and Prioritization Framework

Local governments have steadily increased their initiative to address global climate change, and many present their proposed strategies through climate action plans (CAPs). This study conducts a literature review on current local approaches to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction strategies by assessing CAPs in California and presents common strategies in the transportation sector along with useful tools. One identified limitation of many CAPs is the omission of quantitative economic cost and emissions data for decision-making on the basis of cost-effectiveness. Therefore, this study proposes a framework for comparing strategies based on their life cycle emissions mitigation potential and costs. The results data can be presented in a marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) to allow for side-by-side comparison of considered strategies. Researchers partnered with Yolo and Unincorporated Los Angeles Counties to analyze 7 strategies in the transportation and energy sectors (five and two, respectively). A MACC was subsequently developed for each county. Applying the life cycle approach revealed strategies that had net cost savings over their life cycle, indicating there are opportunities for reducing emissions and costs. The MACC also revealed that some emissions reduction strategies in fact increased emissions on a life cycle basis. Applying the MACC framework to two case study jurisdictions illustrated both the feasibility and challenges of including quantitative analysis in their decision-making process. An additional barrier to using the MACC framework in the context of CAPs, is the mismatch between a life cycle and annual accounting basis for GHG emissions. Future work could explore more efficient data collection, alternative scopes of emissions for reporting, and environmental justice concerns.View the NCST Project Webpag

Carbon Free Boston: Social equity report 2019

OVERVIEW: In January 2019, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission released its Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report, identifying potential options for the City of Boston to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. The report found that reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 requires three mutually-reinforcing strategies in key sectors: 1) deepen energy efficiency while reducing energy demand, 2) electrify activity to the fullest practical extent, and 3) use fuels and electricity that are 100 percent free of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Summary Report detailed the ways in which these technical strategies will transform Boston’s physical infrastructure, including its buildings, energy supply, transportation, and waste management systems. The Summary Report also highlighted that it is how these strategies are designed and implemented that matter most in ensuring an effective and equitable transition to carbon neutrality. Equity concerns exist for every option the City has to reduce GHG emissions. The services provided by each sector are not experienced equally across Boston’s communities. Low-income families and families of color are more likely to live in residences that are in poor physical condition, leading to high utility bills, unsafe and unhealthy indoor environments, and high GHG emissions.1 Those same families face greater exposure to harmful outdoor air pollution compared to others. The access and reliability of public transportation is disproportionately worse in neighborhoods with large populations of people of color, and large swaths of vulnerable neighborhoods, from East Boston to Mattapan, do not have ready access to the city’s bike network. Income inequality is a growing national issue and is particularly acute in Boston, which consistently ranks among the highest US cities in regards to income disparities. With the release of Imagine Boston 2030, Mayor Walsh committed to make Boston more equitable, affordable, connected, and resilient. The Summary Report outlined the broad strokes of how action to reach carbon neutrality intersects with equity. A just transition to carbon neutrality improves environmental quality for all Bostonians, prioritizes socially vulnerable populations, seeks to redress current and past injustice, and creates economic and social opportunities for all. This Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report provides a deeper equity context for Carbon Free Boston as a whole, and for each strategy area, by demonstrating how inequitable and unjust the playing field is for socially vulnerable Bostonians and why equity must be integrated into policy design and implementation. This report summarizes the current landscape of climate action work for each strategy area and evaluates how it currently impacts inequity. Finally, this report provides guidance to the City and partners on how to do better; it lays out the attributes of an equitable approach to carbon neutrality, framed around three guiding principles: 1) plan carefully to avoid unintended consequences, 2) be intentional in design through a clear equity lens, and 3) practice inclusivity from start to finish

Vibrotactile pedals : provision of haptic feedback to support economical driving

The use of haptic feedback is currently an underused modality in the driving environment, especially with respect to vehicle manufacturers. This exploratory study evaluates the effects of a vibrotactile (or haptic) accelerator pedal on car driving performance and perceived workload using a driving simulator. A stimulus was triggered when the driver exceeded a 50% throttle threshold, past which is deemed excessive for economical driving. Results showed significant decreases in mean acceleration values, and maximum and excess throttle use when the haptic pedal was active as compared to a baseline condition. As well as the positive changes to driver behaviour, subjective workload decreased when driving with the haptic pedal as compared to when drivers were simply asked to drive economically. The literature suggests that the haptic processing channel offers a largely untapped resource in the driving environment, and could provide information without overloading the other attentional resource pools used in driving

The Carbon Footprint of Acadia National Park

A greenhouse gas emission inventory was conducted at Acadia National Park to explore the impact of park operations, concessionaires, and visitors. Acadia contains fragile ecosystems that are endangered by the effects of climate change from greenhouse gas emission. The purpose of the inventory is to determine Acadia’s carbon footprint and provide mitigation strategies for its greatest contributors. With this report, the goal is to help Acadia increase its environmental sustainability and attain the status of a Climate Friendly Park

Changes in air pollutant emissions from road vehicles due to autonomous driving technology: A conceptual modeling approach

The autonomous vehicles (AVs) could make a positive or negative impact on reducing mobile emissions. This study investigated the changes of mobile emissions that could be caused by large-scale adoption of AVs. The factors of road capacity increase and speed limit increase impacts were simulated using a conceptual modeling approach that combines a hypothetical speed-emission function and a traffic demand model using a virtual transportation network. The simulation results show that road capacity increase impact is significant in decreasing mobile emissions until the market share of AVs is less than 80%. If the road capacity increases by 100%, the mobile emissions will decrease by about 30%. On the other hand, driving speed limit increase impact is significant in increasing mobile emissions, and the environmentally desirable speed limit was found at around 95 km/h. If the speed limit increases to 140 km/h, the mobile emissions will increase by about 25%. This is because some vehicles begin to bypass the congested routes at high speeds as speed limit increases. Based on the simulation results, it is clear that the vehicle platooning technology implemented at reasonable speed limit is one of the AV technologies that are encouraging from the environmental point of view

Synergy: An Energy Monitoring and Visualization System

The key to becoming a more sustainable society is first learning to take responsibility for the role we play in energy consumption. Real-time energy usage gives energy consumers a sense of responsibility over what they can do to accomplish a much larger goal for the planet, and practically speaking, what they can do to lower the cost to their wallets. Synergy is an energy monitoring and visualization system that enables users to gather information about the energy consumption in a building – small or large – and display that data for the user in real-time. The gathered energy usage data is processed on the edge before being stored in the cloud. The two main benefits of edge processing are issuing electricity hazard warnings immediately and preserving user privacy. In addition to being a scalable solution that intended for use in individual households, commercial offices and city power grids, Synergy is open-source so that it can be implemented more widely. This paper contains a system overview as well as initial finding based on the data collected by Synergy before assessing the impact the system can have on society

The role of sea ports in end-to-end maritime transport chain emissions

This paper's purpose is to investigate the role of sea ports in helping to mitigate the GHG emissions associated with the end-to-end maritime transport chain. The analysis is primarily focused on the UK, but is international in application. The paper is based on both the analysis of secondary data and information on actions taken by ports to reduce their emissions, with the latter data collected for the main UK ports via their published reports and/or via interviews. Only a small number of ports (representing 32% of UK port activity) actually measure and report their carbon emissions in the UK context. The emissions generated by ships calling at these ports are analysed using a method based on Department for Transport Maritime Statistics Data. In addition, a case example (Felixstowe) of emissions associated with HGV movements to and from ports is presented, and data on vessel emissions at berth are also considered. Our analyses indicate that emissions generated by ships during their voyages between ports are of a far greater magnitude than those generated by the port activities. Thus while reducing the ports' own emissions is worthwhile, the results suggest that ports might have more impact through focusing their efforts on reducing shipping emissions

Low-carbon development for Colombia

Colombia is well-positioned to pursue a low-carbon development path given the country’s already large hydropower production, a model urban transport program, and significant potential to reduce emissions from agriculture, forestry, and other land-use (AFOLU). While reducing carbon emissions through these and other activities can demonstrate Colombia’s commitment to addressing global climate change, the primary driver of such activities should be that they are part of the country’s economic and sustainable development agenda. Policymakers need to ensure that public policies for climate mitigation support projects that are economic and achieve macroeconomic goals such as generating income and employment. Given the importance of hydropower and Colombia’s huge potential for expanding agriculture and forestry, another consideration is that mitigation measures should not increase the country’s vulnerability to climate change impacts—some could actually do that—but should also increase the country’s resilience to natural and manmade disasters. These findings are based on an analysis of Colombia’s climate mitigation options made jointly by the World Bank and the Department of National Planning (DNP)