Future view of New York City; Courtesy of Alexis Rockman
Some Carbon plans actually get out on the ground and count trees and measure CO2. New York City's plan makes use of remote sensing and aerial mapping. Ground proofing, that is getting out there on the ground to count and measure is a good way to check the accuracy of your results will apparently be done later.
The agenda is to complete New York City's greenhouse gas audit by the end of March and come up with ways to reduce NYC's carbon signature by 30% by 2030.
How? Well they are working on it, but it must be noted that the initial greenhouse gas audit covers only city operations and not the rest of New York. NYC accounts for about 1% of global emissions and the city government operations including CUNY account for 15% of that. In order to get results quickly the City has decided to address primarily 'Hotspots' to maintain a high a high public profile for programs.
Rick Aggarwala
Rohit (Rick) Aggarwala the 'Mayors Sustainability Guy' who was seconded from the Deputy Mayor Dan Doctorow's office to head this program, said to the assembly "No one has set a 2030 goal like ours" and that while NYC is already "the most carbon efficient city in the US," largely thanks to its public transit system we will use technology to help meet our goals. Some of the technology he noted that we will need to achieve these goals in 2030 and 2050 has yet to be developed.
Urban Haze
The CO2 inventory is overseen by
Robert Dickenson from Columbia University's Earth Institute. Mr Aggarwala noted that certain assumptions were being made in the methodology of the audit. Half the emissions of aircraft taking off from regional airports are counted, truck emissions are hard to calculate and the rough breakdown of CO2 signatures in NYC is 60% from Buildings and 20% from vehicular transport.
In the rest of the country vehicular transport accounts for 60-70% of CO2 emissions so some here feel there might be significant flaws in the methodology.
Even for a
highly efficient cityand New York could be a lot more efficient, including cars & trucks at 20% percent share could be construed as statistically anomalous in the United States. This means the criteria in the model used for determing that percentage may have a built in bias or do not include certain data.
Most of the organizations and individuals, involved in
PLANNYC 2030 are well known in the context of activism and conservation in New York. All of the individuals who testified before Committee Chair Gennaro made concise, cogent and clear presentations in the 5 minutes alloted for testimony.
The Panel
One of the most forceful speakers was the Program Director of the
Environmental Defense Fund, Mr Peter Goldmark. He pointed out that mobile sources account for a lot more of NYC's carbon signature than 20%, considerably more. Most likely in the range of 60%. He endorsed
congestion pricing for Manhattan on the model of that which was introduced by Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, a few years back and spoke of the need for better rapid transit and more bus service in the outer boros.
New York City will also play host to the
Global Climate Summit. A symposium where the 40 largest cities in the world will get together and compare notes. This event will be sponsored by C40 Large Cities Group and will take place from May 14th to May 17th 2007 here in NYC.
Just in time
So the Mayor's proposed bottom line:
Build a green services industryProvide more green job trainingBuild better buildings and rebuild existing ones. Encourage emissions trading in the financial sector Improve public transportation Consider a congestion pricing scheme
Counting trees indeed. It may also be the Bloomberg Administration wishes to securitize and commoditize the carbon credit potential the 1000+ square mile watershed that fills New York Cities resevoirs and determine a way to do this for the trees lining the City's streets.
If so this will a first excercise in the sale of the carbon offset rights of land in a public trust as a security. Counting trees indeed and who owns the rights to the trees you planted in your front yard?
