To respond to this missed opportunity at enacting a comprehensive climate policy, the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) has drafted a fresh list of recommendations that President Obama can implement in the near term. As PCAP Executive Director William Becker, put it, “Congress has passed the ball back to President Obama. He should run with it.”

The 5-point plan will help strengthen the federal government’s partnership with state and local governments, and can demonstrate the U.S. leadership on climate change when the international community meets this November in Cancun to continue work to enact a global climate treaty.

The five recommendations are:

1. Work with states, tribal governments, and local governments to create a national roadmap to the clean energy economy
2. Declare a war on energy waste
3. Begin reinventing national transportation policy
4. Eliminate fossil energy subsidies under the Administration’s control
5. Establish ecosystem restoration as a climate action strategy

CNT’s research and expertise in transportation, land use, and climate change formed the basis for much of the 2008 plan’s transportation agenda and are implicit in the newest set of recommendations. The H+T Affordability Index, for example, is cited as a tool that can help reinvent national transportation policy by giving consumers, developers and public officials needed information when making housing and planning decisions.

The Presidential Climate Action Project submitted “Plan B: Near-Term Presidential Actions for Energy & Environmental Leadership” to the Obama Administration on August 5. CNT President, Scott Bernstein, serves on PCAP’s National Advisory Committee and continues to work with the group to help create public policy that addresses climate change and energy issues.

Read more about CNT and the Presidential Climate Action Project here.

Download “Plan B: Near-Term Presidential Actions for Energy & Environmental Leadership” (PDF)

Today’s news from Capitol Hill underscores why CNT’s work is more important than ever. Since the day CNT opened its doors more than 30 years ago, our philosophy is that change comes at the neighborhood level. And although it is crucial for the United States to implement a federal-level strategy to improve our energy system and reduce our global warming pollution, many of the actions required to meet any national climate goal will occur at the local level. That means every community can and should continue to move forward and do its part.

That’s why we at CNT focus on giving communities the tools and information they need to take action that improves and strengthens their communities and reduces their impact on the environment. For example:

• CNT directs cities on how best to monitor its emissions and create strategies to reduce them. CNT’s mitigation research for the Chicago Climate Action Plan serves as a guide for other communities to measure and strategically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CNT Board Member Julia Parzen’s “Lessons Learned: Creating the Chicago Climate Action Plan” can help cities design their own climate action plan process that engages the whole community and creates real climate action.

• CNT brings energy efficiency retrofits for our building stock to scale. CNT’s multi-family building energy retrofits have created real dollar savings for building owners while reducing energy demand and cutting air pollution and global warming emissions.

• CNT created and continues to disseminate the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index (H+T^SM Index), a tool for policy makers and homeowners to assess the transportation costs of a particular community. The H+T Index provides a complete picture of housing affordability and encourages people to re-think where they live based on transportation costs. Urging homeowners and policy makers to broaden their definition of affordability promotes dense community development and helps reduce driving, cut auto pollution, and save people money.

• CNT launched I-GO Car Sharing, which provides a sustainable, convenient, cost-effective alternative to car ownership. I-GO’s 15,000 members cumulatively save an estimated $25 million each year on avoided costs to own, insure and repair a vehicle.

• CNT promotes wide-scale use of green infrastructure, which can reduce the energy and conventional man-made infrastructure needed to manage and treat stormwater, while helping communities adapt to the changing rainfall patterns caused by global warming. Green infrastructure can also reduce the urban heat island effect and the need for dirty electricity to cool buildings in summer.

Through all of these projects and more, CNT will continue to work to help communities sustainably address global climate change while creating cost savings for residents and businesses.

This session, organized and co-hosted by the EPA and HUD, will focus on local and regional ideas and concerns about climate change impacts in the Great Lakes region, including impacts to urban infrastructure and the Great Lakes ecosystem.

There will be a live webcasts of the events available online.

Background

The White House Council on Environmental Quality provides the following background:

In 2009, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration initiated the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which includes representatives from more than 20 Federal Agencies. When the President signed the Executive Order on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance, on October 5, 2009, he called on the Task Force to develop, within one year, Federal recommendations for adapting to climate change impacts both domestically and internationally.

On March 16, 2010, the Task Force released an interim report which outlines progress to date and recommends key components to include in a national strategy on climate change adaptation.

Meetings that already have been held include…

Oregon Regional Meeting: June 6, 2010 – Portland

* View the media advisory
* View the agenda
* Watch the video

Florida Regional Meeting: June 23, 2010 – Miami

* View the media advisory
* View the agenda
* Watch the video

Hawaii Regional Meeting: July 9, 2010 – Honolulu

* View the media advisory
* View the agenda
* Watch the video

The next two upcoming meetings…

Chicago, Illinois:

When:
Thursday, July 15
Media availability at 12:30 p.m. and public outreach meeting at 1 p.m.
Note: Please allow up to 30 minutes to get through security at the Metcalfe Federal Building.

Where:
Room 325, Metcalf Federal Building, 77 W. Jackson Boulevard, Chicago, IL

Who:

** Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality

** Ronald Sims, Deputy Secretary of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

** Robert Verchick, Deputy Associate Administrator of the Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency;

** Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works

** John Balbus, Senior Adviser for Public Health at the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Denver, Colorado:

Organized by the United States Department of Agriculture and co-hosted by the American Farmland Trust and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Go here for more information, agenda updates, and to RSVP.

When:
Monday, July 19, 2010; 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Where:
Doubletree Hotel Denver
Grand Ballroom
3203 Quebec Street
Denver, Colorado 80207
More Information

Online Resources:

Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. Led by White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and including more than 20 Federal Agencies.

Integrating Valuation Methods to Recognize Green Infrastructure’s Multiple Benefits. Reviews current methods, tools and case studies of valuation of the economic and social benefits produced by green infrastructure practices, particularly as they are applied in urban settings.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Chicago: Emissions Inventories and Reduction Strategies for Chicago and its Metropolitan Region. A summary of the research methods and results CNT used to develop Chicago’s greenhouse gas inventory for the Chicago Climate Action Plan. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Great Lakes Research.

Chicago’s Guide to Completing an Energy Efficiency & Conservation Strategy. The purpose of Chicago’s Guide is to help cities and counties to develop a long-term and sustainable energy efficiency and conservation plan and maximize the opportunity for cost savings, environmental benefits, financial leverage and economic development.

Summary Report: Chicago’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Inventory, Forecast and Mitigation Analysis for Chicago and the Metropolitan Region. This research was part of a broader effort by the City to determine the local ramifications of climate change, for its citizens and for City operations. In addition to CNT’s work on emissions and mitigation strategies, the City engaged researchers to examine climate-change adaptation, economic impacts, and the effects of climate change on City departments.

Chicago’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions: An Inventory, Forecast and Mitigation Analysis for Chicago and the Metropolitan Region. Commissioned by the city to help create its recently released Climate Action Plan, CNT conducted the emissions and mitigation-strategies research to reach the city’s emission reduction target of 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2020.

The Presidential Climate Action Plan. Developed by a broad group of leaders from around the nation, the PCAP is the most comprehensive and detailed plan for national climate action yet presented to the presidential candidates and the American people. It consists of more than 100 proposed policies and programs covering more than a dozen critical areas of endeavor. More broadly, PCAP identifies how the 44th President and the Congress can help America find its path to a 21st Century economy that achieves three critical objectives: security, opportunity and stewardship.

CNT’s Climate news archive.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Chicago Wilderness launched their Climate Action Plan for Nature that establishes a framework to address issues of biodiversity conservation and climate change in the Chicago region. CNT is a member of the Chicago Wilderness alliance.

This traveling exhibit, along with the local focus on solutions to climate change, will remain at the Field Museum through November 28, 2010. For more information on the exhibit, visit www.fieldmuseum.org.

CNT continues to work to give communities the tools and information they need to take action and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while creating community and household benefits. We hope that firm federal action of some kind will move forward and create the incentives and opportunities for communities to expand the implementation of sustainable climate solutions. In the upcoming weeks, CNT will continue efforts to preserve and strengthen the best parts of the “American Power Act” while informing decision-makers about the unnecessary and counterproductive elements.

"Chicago’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2000", copyright CNT, 2010.

When CNT set out to inventory Chicago’s greenhouse gas emissions, our goal was to give the Mayor’s Task Force on Climate Change the information it needed to better understand where Chicago’s emissions come from and to establish a baseline for comparison in future years. In addition to that, we created a portfolio of emissions reductions measures to better understand the scale and scope of actions that needed to be taken to meet the city’s emissions reduction targets.

Beyond the City-commissioned research, our broader goal is to make our climate change analysis transparent and available for cities around the world to take action on reducing their impact on climate change. Soon this research will be available in the Journal of Great Lakes Research and it is our belief that the valuable information in this peer-reviewed, scientific journal can serve as a useful tool for cities to use a model.

The forthcoming article, “Greenhouse gas emissions in Chicago: Emissions inventories and reduction strategies for Chicago and its metropolitan region”, summarizes the research methods and results CNT used to develop Chicago’s greenhouse gas inventory for the Chicago Climate Action Plan. The paper also describes the portfolio of mitigation strategies CNT investigated for reducing Chicago’s greenhouse gas emissions and meeting its target of emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2020.

Our analysis of climate change mitigation strategies was designed to address two key questions for Chicago:

1. What are the most promising strategies for substantially reducing Chicago’s greenhouse gas emissions?
2. What scale of deployment of these strategies is necessary to achieve the goal of 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2020?

CNT answered these questions by researching and developing a portfolio of 33 emissions reduction strategies tailored to Chicago. The Chicago Climate Task Force used this portfolio to select the final mitigation strategies and implementation scale for the Chicago Climate Action Plan.

With the subsequent publication of the Chicago Climate Action Plan and the ongoing efforts of the City of Chicago and many others to implement real-world emissions reductions, the details of the projects and programs has changed to adapt to the realities of program execution. Moreover, the exact greenhouse gas reduction impact of any program will depend on hundreds of small details—from participation rates to weather.

Accordingly, CNT encourages cities to use this research into the potential greenhouse gas reduction benefits of programs as a guide to compare programs and a reference as to the scale of impact, but our research findings are not the same as measured results from a specific program.

As useful as it is to estimate potential program impacts in the planning phase, nothing compares to strong program evaluation that tracks real-world results on the ground. In the end, an inventory of all emissions generated by a community will be the real measure of whether a city is meeting its emissions reduction goal. CNT looks forward to continuing to assist cities as they take climate action to help them achieve real emissions reductions that create benefits for the residents and businesses in their communities.

CNT’s version of McGraw, J., et al., “Greenhouse gas emissions in Chicago: Emissions inventories and reduction strategies for Chicago and its metropolitan region”, J Great Lakes Res (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jglr.2009.11.010, is available from our website here or by purchasing the published copy from the Journal of Great Lakes here.

CNT has been directly working on climate change issues for a decade and a half and indirectly working to address the problems that impact climate for our entire 31-year history as an organization. Despite recent setbacks, climate action is more on track today that it has been at any time since the Kyoto Protocol was signed (and maybe even before then, since the U.S. never ratified Kyoto).

Why such climate optimism despite the doom and gloom in the news? Many positive advancements are occurring that are not necessarily making the headlines. These examples are paving the way to not only a more definitive climate policy but to a broader awareness to the behavior changes we must take to reduce our greenhouse gas impact.

EPA Reporting Rule
The U.S. EPA issued a regulation in October that requires facilities that emit 25,000 tons carbon dioxide equivalent or more per year to report their 2010 emissions by April 2011. They expect that this will result in 10,000 reporting facilities covering 85 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Reporting emissions isn’t the same thing as reducing them, but mandatory reporting helps us better understand where our emissions are coming from, laying the groundwork for future emissions reductions.

CNT submitted comments during the drafting process for this rule that would make it even more rigorous. We have called for this kind of required reporting for quite some time, and are pleased to see it take shape. Moreover, the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act is seen as a backstop to allow climate action even if the congress does not pass a bill. EPA has not taken that step yet—this rule is just for reporting, not for capping emissions, but that option is still on the table.

Energy Efficiency Block Grant
The vast majority of our greenhouse gas emissions result from our use of fossil fuels, so improving our efficiency not only saves us money, conserves resources, but it will cut our emissions significantly. Therefore it is great news that funds are now being issued to cities under Energy Efficiency Block Grant as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Over 40 municipalities in Illinois have been awarded funding under this program to-date. Each participating government authority must develop an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy and CNT is helping communities in the Chicago region through our Municipal Energy Profile Program which is providing data on energy use and emissions for 283 municipalities in the region.

Executive Order
In October, the White House issued an Executive Order requiring all federal agencies to begin to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. There is a long history of environmental action through executive order, and as the federal government is a major purchaser of goods and services, the changes made have the potential to ripple through the economy. Executive Orders were one of the key strategies CNT analyzed in our work to help develop the Presidential Climate Action Plan.

The “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance” Executive Order will require each federal agency to appoint a Senior Sustainability Officer, calculate the greenhouse gas emissions inventory of the agency, set reduction targets for both direct and indirect emissions, and report annually on progress. The Executive Order addresses sustainability of federal operations broadly, including location efficiency, fleets, waste reduction, green buildings, energy efficient procurement, stormwater, and electronics disposal.

California Assembly Bill 32: Global Warming Solutions Act
As part of its broad sweeping climate change laws, California is leading the way in figuring out the nuts and bolts of creating greenhouse gas reductions. For example, its mandatory greenhouse gas reporting scheme recently released the emissions reports of over 500 facilities in the state, creating a brand new knowledge base for targeting emission reduction actions.

These are just a handful of the many activities that are taking place today that would need to happen under a cap and trade bill anyway. So while CNT supports strong legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is no time to waste in reducing the harm we are doing to our climate and CNT will continue to work on solutions reduce emissions today and into the future.

This report, which documents the Plan’s process up until its public release on September 19, 2008, summarizes key lessons learned and provides a timeline and observations about each step. The City of Chicago benefited from the work of other cities as it created the Chicago Climate Action Plan. Because of funding from the Clinton Climate Initiative, Chicago was able to document the three phases—research, planning, and implementation—of the Chicago Climate Action Plan process. The report is being co-released by the Global Philanthropy Partnership, the City of Chicago, and ICLEI.

As the City of Chicago reflects on the first year of the plan’s implementation, Julia believes that “Chicago has benefited from its action plan and has valuable lessons to share, data that is applicable to many other cities, and tools for prioritizing strategies that I hope other cities can adapt.”

The Chicago Climate Action Plan outlines five strategies, which are broken into 26 actions for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and nine actions to prepare for climate change. CNT was the lead researcher for the mitigation strategies for the Plan. Learn more about CNT’s research.

The bill calls for an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, along with programs to encourage renewable energy production. This landmark legislation is the first to focus on comprehensive and direct solutions to climate change. The bill successfully targets climate change by focusing on short-term solutions like provisions for creating energy-efficient buildings—solutions that can reduce energy usage and save Americans money.

Additionally, key language from the G.R.E.E.N. Act will be included into the final version of the bill. “The GREEN Act measures will help revitalize our economy by making energy efficiency practices more affordable, accessible and achievable by consumers, businesses and government entities,” said U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO).

CNT is excited that Location Efficient Mortgages (LEMs) will be included in this legislation as a tool at integrating housing and transportation savings for first-time home buyers. CNT co-developed LEMs in 1995 with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Surface Transportation Policy Project to help people become homeowners in location efficient communities. When alternative transportation options are available in a community, like walking, biking and public transit, this frees up more money for housing. LEM lenders account for the savings as additional income to go toward the purchase of a home.

By targeting both location and energy efficiency, the federal climate bill contains the ‘meat’ necessary to tackle climate change comprehensively. And the results should benefit the pockets of working families and our natural resources.

CNT looked at emissions of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas, stemming from household vehicle travel in 55 metropolitan areas across the U.S. When measured on a per household basis, it found that the transportation-related emissions of people living in cities and compact neighborhoods can be nearly 70% less than those living in suburbs. See how this compares in your region at our newly redesigned Housing + Transportation Affordability Index site.

Read the full Press Release or try out the new site.