Richard Tafoya
Jun 4th, 2008, 11:25 PM
AP:
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-05-29-city-carbon-footprint-global-warming_N.htm
While cities are hot spots for global warming, people living in them turn out to be greener than their country cousins.
Each resident of the largest 100 largest metropolitans areas is responsible on average for 2.47 tons of carbon dioxide in energy consumption each year, 14% below the 2.87 ton U.S. average, researchers at the Brookings Institution say in a report being released Thursday.
Those 100 cities still account for 56% of the nation's carbon dioxide pollution. But their greater use of mass transit and population density reduce the per person average. "It was a surprise the extent to which emissions per capita are lower," Marilyn Brown, a professor of energy policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of the report, said in an interview.
Metropolitan area emissions of carbon dioxide are highest in the eastern U.S., where people rely heavily on coal for electricity, the researchers found.
Indianapolis was ranked second, while parts of Indiana in the Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, metro areas fell third and fifth respectively. Emissions are lower in the West, where weather is more favorable and where electricity and motor fuel prices have been higher.
The study examined sources and use of residential electricity, home heating and cooling, and transportation in 2005 in the largest 100 metropolitan areas where two-thirds of the people in the U.S. live. It attributed a wide disparity among the 100 cities to population density, availability of mass transit and weather.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-05-29-city-carbon-footprint-global-warming_N.htm
While cities are hot spots for global warming, people living in them turn out to be greener than their country cousins.
Each resident of the largest 100 largest metropolitans areas is responsible on average for 2.47 tons of carbon dioxide in energy consumption each year, 14% below the 2.87 ton U.S. average, researchers at the Brookings Institution say in a report being released Thursday.
Those 100 cities still account for 56% of the nation's carbon dioxide pollution. But their greater use of mass transit and population density reduce the per person average. "It was a surprise the extent to which emissions per capita are lower," Marilyn Brown, a professor of energy policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-author of the report, said in an interview.
Metropolitan area emissions of carbon dioxide are highest in the eastern U.S., where people rely heavily on coal for electricity, the researchers found.
Indianapolis was ranked second, while parts of Indiana in the Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, metro areas fell third and fifth respectively. Emissions are lower in the West, where weather is more favorable and where electricity and motor fuel prices have been higher.
The study examined sources and use of residential electricity, home heating and cooling, and transportation in 2005 in the largest 100 metropolitan areas where two-thirds of the people in the U.S. live. It attributed a wide disparity among the 100 cities to population density, availability of mass transit and weather.