Brookings: Shrinking the carbon footprint of metropolitan america

In May 2008, the Brookings Institute released their report Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Metropolitan America. The report quantifies transportation and residential carbon emissions in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in 2000 and 2005. According to the report, "Residential density and the availability of public transit are important to understanding carbon footprints, as were the carbon intensity of electricity generation, electricity prices, and weather." Metro areas east of the Mississippi were relatively worse in GHG emissions. And the South particularly, had the largest carbon footprints of any region in both 2000 and 2005. In addition to system-wide changes, such as pricing carbon, establishing and RFS, and increasing R&D, the report also offered more particular suggestions for reducing GHG emissions in metro areas. These policy options included:

• Promoting more transportation choices;
• Introducing more energy-efficient freight operations;
• Requiring home energy cost disclosure when selling and "on-bill" financing;
• Using federal housing policy to create incentives for energy and location efficient decisions; and
  
• Issuing a metropolitan challange to induce innovative solutions.

The full report can be found here.