An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals
A credible assessment of a city’s greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies requires a valid account of a city’s emissions. However, questions persist as to whether cities’ ‘self-reported inventories’ (SRIs) are accurate, precise, and consistent enough to track progress toward city mitigation goals....
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2021-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0f25 |
| _version_ | 1797747620329816064 |
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| author | K L Mueller T Lauvaux K R Gurney G Roest S Ghosh S M Gourdji A Karion P DeCola J Whetstone |
| author_facet | K L Mueller T Lauvaux K R Gurney G Roest S Ghosh S M Gourdji A Karion P DeCola J Whetstone |
| author_sort | K L Mueller |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | A credible assessment of a city’s greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies requires a valid account of a city’s emissions. However, questions persist as to whether cities’ ‘self-reported inventories’ (SRIs) are accurate, precise, and consistent enough to track progress toward city mitigation goals. Although useful for broad policy initiatives, city SRIs provide annual snapshots that may have limited use to city managers looking to develop targeted mitigation policies that overlap with other issues like equity, air quality, and human health. An emerging approach from the research community that integrates ‘bottom-up’ hourly, street-level emission data products with ‘top-down’ GHG atmospheric observations have begun to yield production-based (scope 1) GHG estimates that can track changes in emissions at annual and sub-annual timeframes. The use of this integrated approach offers a much-needed assessment of SRIs: the atmospheric observations are tied to international standards and the bottom-up information incorporates multiple overlapping socio-economic data. The emissions are mapped at fine scales which helps link them to attribute information (e.g. fuel types) that can further facilitate mitigation actions. Here, we describe this approach and compare results to the SRI from the City of Indianapolis which shows a yearly difference of 35% in scope 1 emissions. In the City of Baltimore, we show that granular emission information can help address multiple issues, e.g. GHG emissions, air pollution, and inequity, at the sub-zip code scale where many roots and causes for each issue exist. Finally, we show that the incorporation of atmospheric concentrations within an integrated system provides rapid, near-real-time feedback on CO _2 emissions anomalies that can uncover important behavioral and economic relationships. An integrated approach to GHG monitoring, reporting and verification can ensure uniformity, and provide accuracy to city-scale GHG emissions, scalable to states and the nation—ultimately helping cities meet stated ambitions. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:54:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ce95fa98cdec4fd6bf86ef538a75e432 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:54:05Z |
| publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-ce95fa98cdec4fd6bf86ef538a75e4322023-08-09T15:02:18ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262021-01-0116808400310.1088/1748-9326/ac0f25An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goalsK L Mueller0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3516-2259T Lauvaux1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7697-742XK R Gurney2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9218-7164G Roest3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6971-4613S Ghosh4https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6183-5384S M Gourdji5https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0309-9187A Karion6https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6304-3513P DeCola7J Whetstone8https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5139-9176National Institute of Standards and Technology , Gaithersburg, MD, United States of AmericaLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement , Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, FranceSchool of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University , Flagstaff, AZ, United States of AmericaSchool of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University , Flagstaff, AZ, United States of AmericaCenter for Research Computing, University of Notre Dame , South Bend, IN, United States of AmericaNational Institute of Standards and Technology , Gaithersburg, MD, United States of AmericaNational Institute of Standards and Technology , Gaithersburg, MD, United States of AmericaThe University of Maryland , College Park, MD, United States of AmericaNational Institute of Standards and Technology , Gaithersburg, MD, United States of AmericaA credible assessment of a city’s greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policies requires a valid account of a city’s emissions. However, questions persist as to whether cities’ ‘self-reported inventories’ (SRIs) are accurate, precise, and consistent enough to track progress toward city mitigation goals. Although useful for broad policy initiatives, city SRIs provide annual snapshots that may have limited use to city managers looking to develop targeted mitigation policies that overlap with other issues like equity, air quality, and human health. An emerging approach from the research community that integrates ‘bottom-up’ hourly, street-level emission data products with ‘top-down’ GHG atmospheric observations have begun to yield production-based (scope 1) GHG estimates that can track changes in emissions at annual and sub-annual timeframes. The use of this integrated approach offers a much-needed assessment of SRIs: the atmospheric observations are tied to international standards and the bottom-up information incorporates multiple overlapping socio-economic data. The emissions are mapped at fine scales which helps link them to attribute information (e.g. fuel types) that can further facilitate mitigation actions. Here, we describe this approach and compare results to the SRI from the City of Indianapolis which shows a yearly difference of 35% in scope 1 emissions. In the City of Baltimore, we show that granular emission information can help address multiple issues, e.g. GHG emissions, air pollution, and inequity, at the sub-zip code scale where many roots and causes for each issue exist. Finally, we show that the incorporation of atmospheric concentrations within an integrated system provides rapid, near-real-time feedback on CO _2 emissions anomalies that can uncover important behavioral and economic relationships. An integrated approach to GHG monitoring, reporting and verification can ensure uniformity, and provide accuracy to city-scale GHG emissions, scalable to states and the nation—ultimately helping cities meet stated ambitions.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0f25emissionscitiesapproachesgreenhouse gascarbon accountingGHG observations |
| spellingShingle | K L Mueller T Lauvaux K R Gurney G Roest S Ghosh S M Gourdji A Karion P DeCola J Whetstone An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals Environmental Research Letters emissions cities approaches greenhouse gas carbon accounting GHG observations |
| title | An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals |
| title_full | An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals |
| title_fullStr | An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals |
| title_full_unstemmed | An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals |
| title_short | An emerging GHG estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals |
| title_sort | emerging ghg estimation approach can help cities achieve their climate and sustainability goals |
| topic | emissions cities approaches greenhouse gas carbon accounting GHG observations |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0f25 |
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