Earlier this month, the Global Climate Action Summit convened in San Francisco to discuss ambitious climate action targets for global emissions by 2020, setting the stage to reach net zero emissions by midcentury. Chris Jones, ERG alum and lead developer at UC Berkeley’s CoolClimate Network, spoke about his team’s interactive map of the Bay Area, color-coded to show the relative size of neighborhoods’ carbon footprints. Though at first the findings unintentionally caused commotion among Bay Area cities to defend their efforts, Jones believes this could be a powerful side effect. “Cities with higher emissions, this can light a fire under them to do more,” said Jones. He said that there is “peer pressure” between cities, households and businesses as they make commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more about the Carbon Footprint Study here.