Local governments set targets to battle climate change

Portland, Multnomah County pledge effort through Clean Energy Fund

By Steve Law

The Portland Tribune, Apr 17, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (8 Reader comments)

The city of Portland and Multnomah County want to change the way we live – how we get to work and school, the energy and food we consume, and how we power our homes and businesses – in a bid to minimize climate change.

City and county leaders are working on a new climate action plan that would set in motion a host of changes in government policy and, hopefully, personal behavior. The goal is to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Global warming “is a potential global catastrophe and we want to address it,” said Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen, a leader in the joint city/county effort.

Portland’s 1993 carbon dioxide reduction strategy, and several other actions, have been remarkably successful by national standards – a 17 percent reduction, per person, in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels, Cogen said. But because of population growth during that period, total emissions have only fallen about 1 percent below 1990 levels.

With new scientific evidence suggesting climate change is advancing more quickly than previously projected, the 2009 update to the climate change strategy calls for sweeping reductions over the next years and decades. The world needs to reduce carbon emissions 50 percent to 80 percent below 1990 levels to avert global catastrophe, Cogen said.

Making local progress

Officials are starting to gather public comments on the plans, and hope to enact a 2009 climate action plan in late June. The plan sets a lofty goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 90 percent per person by the year 2050. Because of population growth, that would bring carbon emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels.

The plans call for reducing the average number of miles people drive from 18.5 miles a day in 2007 to 6.7 miles a day in 2050. Electricity use would have to fall from 12,300 kilowatt hours per year in 2007 to 4,146 kilowatt hours in 2050. The plan calls for 30 percent of all trips to be made by bicycle by 2030, up from 4 percent in 2007.

Portland achieved those reductions without federal subsidies, Cogen noted, and, in the case of the George W. Bush administration, while the top levels of government sometimes dismissed the notion of human-caused global warming.

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