{"id":3199,"date":"2021-02-19T19:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T19:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1339752"},"modified":"2021-02-19T19:00:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T19:00:38","slug":"us-cities-may-be-under-reporting-their-emissions-by-up-to-145","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=3199","title":{"rendered":"US cities may be under-reporting their emissions\u2026 by up to 145%"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article was originally published by Sarah Wray<\/a> on <\/span>Cities Today<\/span><\/a>, the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders. For the latest updates follow Cities Today on <\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>YouTube<\/span><\/a>, or sign up for Cities Today News.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A new study finds that US cities could be underestimating their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 18.3% and in some cases by up to 145%.<\/p>\n

The researchers put the discrepancies largely down to inconsistencies in the way cities calculate emissions.<\/p>\n

The study, <\/span>published in Nature Communications<\/em><\/a>, compared the self-reported emissions inventories of 48 major US cities to estimates from a detailed emissions information system developed by researchers at Northern Arizona University. It found \u201clarge differences and a systematic under-reporting of urban emissions by cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cities in the study included New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, and Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe results of this comparison were surprising,\u201d said Professor Kevin Gurney of Northern Arizona University\u2019s School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, who led the research. \u201cThe differences were large and varied widely from one city to the next. When averaged, the self-reported emissions were almost 20% below the emissions estimated by the Vulcan system.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that the average doesn\u2019t tell the whole story, noting that Cleveland, Ohio reported emissions 90.1%<\/span> below the Vulcan estimate while Palo Alto, California reported emissions 41.7%<\/span> greater than the researchers\u2019 system.<\/p>\n

[Read: How do you build a pet-friendly gadget? We asked experts and animal owners<\/span><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe adage \u2018you can\u2019t manage what you can\u2019t measure\u2019 is really applicable here,\u201d Gurney said. \u201cCities need a comprehensive and accurate assessment of their emissions. Without it, they could target the wrong emissions sources in their landscape for emission reduction or think they are on an emissions trajectory to meet their target, when in fact, they are not.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that this accuracy is also crucial to getting and keeping citizens on board with climate action.<\/p>\n

Methods vary<\/h2>\n

Cities typically estimate their GHG emissions using tools such as the <\/span>US Community Protocol for Accounting and Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, <\/span><\/a>developed by ICLEI; the <\/span>Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories (GPC)<\/a>, developed by the World Resources Institute, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and ICLEI; and the <\/span>Global Covenant of Mayors Common Reporting Framework.<\/a><\/p>\n

The process remains complex, though, and methodologies still differ. The report highlights key areas of variance such as accounting for shipping and airborne emissions and on-road emissions, for instance.<\/p>\n

Further, cities may miss or exclude certain categories due to data challenges or resource constraints.<\/p>\n

The Vulcan tool, which Gurney and a team of science and climate specialists, have developed over 15 years offers a standardized system for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions. It was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and quantifies and visualizes greenhouse gases emitted across the entire country down to individual power plants, neighborhoods, and roadways.<\/p>\n

In an interview with <\/span>Cities Today<\/em>, Gurney described it as \u201ca big data mining machine\u201d. It uses around 30 different datasets related to CO2 emissions, including federal databases, regulatory data, Highway Administration data, energy statistics, and fuel consumption figures, as well as information on land parcels, buildings, traffic, and demographics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is a giant mixture of different datasets that we bring together, and then we try to place the emissions as best we can in space and time across the whole landscape,\u201d Gurney said.<\/p>\n

The results from Vulcan are compared to atmospheric measurements to confirm accuracy.<\/p>\n

Next steps<\/h2>\n

Gurney says the system can also help cities better prioritize and target their climate actions down to the specific pieces of roadway or buildings that are creating the most emissions. In one city, for instance, the tool shows that around 10% of the physical road surface accounts for 60%<\/span> of on-road CO2 emissions. With this insight, cities could achieve results faster and at a lower cost.<\/p>\n

Gurney is pushing for federal agencies in the US and global organizations more widely to consider adopting Vulcan as a systematic way to track emissions.<\/p>\n

He uses the analogy of the weather: \u201cIn the same way that we wouldn\u2019t expect every city or state to collect weather data, run a weather model and figure out their own weather, it doesn\u2019t seem very efficient to have every single city engaging in this redundant activity, which is costly, tedious and very time-consuming. We have a centralized system that we\u2019ve built much like a weather forecast system, and we can make this foundational data available to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura Jay, C40\u2019s Regional Director for North America, told <\/span>Cities Today<\/em>: \u201cThe report underscores how critical cities are to addressing the climate crisis. It also makes an important case for a strong partnership between the federal government, states, and cities with a focus on which specific emissions each level of government can most effectively address, as well as cities working closely with the business community to bring down emissions from all sectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome any new insights that can improve our efforts to reduce emissions, particularly those within cities\u2019 direct control.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next steps for Gurney and his team are looking at \u2018scope 3 emissions\u2019 in the value chain, as well as globalizing the research using remote sensing.<\/p>\n

Cities Today<\/em> has contacted the cities of Cleveland and Palo Alto for comment.<\/p>\n

Update (Feb 11):<\/strong> <\/span>ICLEI published a <\/span>response<\/a> <\/span>to the paper in <\/span>Nature Communications<\/em>, including a Technical FAQ. It states: \u201cThe GHG accounting method in the study is atypical in local GHG accounting, it is not fully comparable with city inventories, and does not address some of the key policy levers that drive cities to conduct GHG inventories and develop GHG mitigation strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Published February 19, 2021 \u2014 19:00 UTC <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published by Sarah Wray on Cities Today, the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders. For the latest updates follow Cities…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}