May 7,2008 From www.tootoo.com
May 7--Officials in the Northeast and West are rethinking the way their communities grow and operate, all with an eye toward reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
After decades of policies that encouraged people to move out to the suburbs in pursuit of larger homes and bigger backyards, policymakers are pushing aggressively to increase urban density and discourage the use of private cars.
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Yet even as these regions are working aggressively to soften their Carbon Active footprint, the proliferation of exurbs in the Southeast is worsening the problem. Six Southeastern states — Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia — would rank as the world's seventh-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases if they were a single country.
"This region is a major part of the problem," said Oliver A. "Trip" Pollard, land and community program leader at the Southern Environmental Law Center. "So far, we are not a major part of the policy solution."
As the Southeast continues to grow — North Carolina, with a population of 8 million, is projected to add 4 million more residents in the next 20 to 25 years — people are spreading out rather than concentrating in cities, which translates into longer commutes.
In King County, Wash., home of Seattle, County Executive Ron Sims has a simple test for every new public works project, building plan or government land purchase: Will it increase greenhouse-gas emissions, or reduce them?
"We are totally committed to reducing emissions, but it requires rethinking the way we do our activities," Sims said. "People are saying, 'But we've always done it this way.' We're saying, 'That way doesn't work in an age of global warming.' "
In Massachusetts, the state demands that developers calculate and disclose the climate impact of their projects. In California, Attorney General Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. has sued communities and power companies for failing to offset the greenhouse gases generated by their expansion plans. And Washington, D.C., officials are installing a new trolley line and bike rental kiosks in an effort to cut back on car trips within the city.
States take the lead
Even though national politicians are beginning to eye a federal Carbon Active cap more seriously, the flurry of activity in state and local jurisdictions highlights a little-noticed reality: Most of the measures to cut greenhouse-gas emissions will be enacted outside Washington.
"The vehicle for delivery, in terms of achieving greenhouse-gas reductions, is often going to be the states," said Ian Bowles, secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs in Massachusetts. "It's going to happen through things like building codes, utilities and zoning."
Brown, who has sued various entities to hold them accountable for the impact of their growth on California's greenhouse-gas releases, acknowledges that government alone cannot change where Americans decide to live and work. "It really takes a sea change in attitude, a shift in how the urban and suburban are perceived," he said in an interview. "It's not something that government can just mandate without a change in how the public views it. You can't just order it into being."
Reid Ewing of the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth has calculated that residents of Atlanta and Raleigh drive more than 30 miles a day per person, while Boston and Portland, Ore., residents drive less than 24 miles a day in their more compact cities. More compact development could cut the U.S. transportation sector's greenhouse-gas emissions by 7 percent to 10 percent, Ewing and his co-authors write in their new book, Growing Cooler.
North Carolina, which has a climate change commission, has opened a light-rail line in Charlotte that has attracted more than 30 percent more riders than planners had expected. The state is planning to spend an additional $2 billion on public transit, though that figure still pales in comparison to the amount it intends to spend on highways.
Most other Southeastern states are accelerating their Carbon Active emissions by expanding roads and curtailing public transit projects. Officials are planning to expand a highway in northwest Atlanta to 23 lanes, even as they missed a deadline to install new commuter rail lines.
Several environmental and planning experts warned that unless cities and counties take active steps to limit sprawl now, the U.S. will find it nearly impossible to make deep cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions in decades to come. King County's Sims, who testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in November, noted that because people are commuting greater distances each year, the increase in Carbon Active dioxide emissions from transportation by 2030 will far outpace any gains in fuel efficiency.
Compact development, by contrast, could reduce metropolitan Carbon Active dioxide emissions by roughly 20 percent, Ewing said.
The goal of land use planners is not to cut emissions right away, recognizing that that will take decades, but to ensure that development doesn't drive up a region's greenhouse-gas output.
"Once you've sprawled, it's really hard to overlay more efficient transportation systems," said Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "Everybody realizes ... this is really hard."
Editor: Haijing Qu
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