Angels Camp and Biggs Sign On for Baseline GHG Inventories

The SBC Climate Team has begun working with two new local governments in our region to complete baseline greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories. SBC will be completing 2010 baseline GHG emissions inventories for Angel’s Camp and Biggs documenting emissions from the cities’ municipal operations and major GHG generating activities within each community. In addition, SBC will be benchmarking the energy performance of the cities’ buildings and facilities using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager software. Benchmarking buildings and facilities allows SBC and our partnering local governments to analyze their building’s energy use and develop cost-effective energy-efficiency measures that can reduce their energy costs and reduce the burden on local taxpayers.

The addition of Biggs and Angels Camp to our climate programs brings the total number of local governments in our region that have worked with SBC to develop GHG emissions inventories up to twenty-six. It is an incredible achievement that the majority of the local governments in our region have taken the first step towards understanding their communities’ energy use and GHG emissions.

A quick refresher on our inventory work: A GHG inventory accounts for activities within a community or municipal operations that generate GHG emissions. For example, a city vehicle travels across town to replace a water meter, combusting gasoline to power the engine, which emits GHGs into the atmosphere. Our staff uses verified protocols and emissions factors to estimate the GHG emissions from these activities.

This is done across many sectors, from passenger vehicles to wastewater treatment using the best available data. While it is not a perfect science, it is the widely accepted method for determining a jurisdiction’s GHG emissions. Once completed, the inventory can be used in conjunction with an energy or climate action plan to develop strategies to reduce emissions over time.

While we have made significant progress to date, there is still a lot of work to do. The next step is to develop the policies and programs that can cost-effectively reduce GHG emissions in our region. SBC is actively working with several local governments in our region to develop Energy Action Plans with the goal of developing policies and programs that will help communities reduce their energy use and the associated costs, improve our local air quality and help community members live more comfortably. Stay tuned for the next blog from our climate planning team discussing the Energy Action Plans that are currently in development.