JRNL3610 FINAL PROJECT:
Is Boston Ready to Meet its Climate Action Plan's Goals?
Boston, Massachusetts is often hailed as one of America’s “greenest” cities, especially in terms of energy use. The city aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, per Boston’s Climate Action Plan. Considering that cities are the greatest emitters of greenhouse gasses in the country, it’s imperative that cities take this into account and implement measures to address their environmental impacts in light of the climate crisis. Though Boston’s municipal government should still be recognized for its efforts and reputable standards against the average American city in regards to lowering emissions, it’s important to consider their stated goals and weigh them against results of their policies so far. One way to do this is to compare the municipal government’s greenhouse gas emissions and evaluate this against the policies outlined in the city’s Climate Action Plan.
Mayor Martin J Walsh became mayor of Boston in 2014 and served until 2021, preceded by current mayor Michelle Wu. During his term, Walsh placed a heavy emphasis on environmental policy, and more specifically on climate readiness. When his administration released an update on the city’s Climate Action Plan in 2019, they included a chapter just on buildings alone, with the first section titled “Construct new buildings to a zero net carbon standard.” This section describes the Zero Net Carbon standard, but it lasts only one page and does not specify the details by which the municipal government intends to transition to renewable energies or otherwise meet these zero net carbon levels. As we can see in Figure 1 below, buildings were the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions out of all sectors that the Boston municipal government is responsible for. Figure 1 depicts the greenhouse gas emissions of the local government, broken down by sector and fuel type. The buildings sector jumps out as the highest emitter by far, and this phenomenon is acknowledged in the city’s plan.
Figure 1
Further, another outcome that jumps out of Figure 1 is specifically the drastically larger use of electricity and natural gas to power Boston’s buildings. This is another matter that remains insufficiently addressed in the Climate Action Plan. The Plan does not describe anywhere what they consider “renewable,” “green,” or “clean” energies, despite using these terms frequently and interchangeably. Within the buildings sector, natural gas is the fuel type responsible for the most amount of emissions, in tons of CO2e. However, natural gas is heavily debated as to whether it can be considered anything along the lines of “clean” or “green,” but what is certain is that it is a non-renewable fuel source. Burning natural gas produces fewer pollutants such as sulfur dioxide or particulates than coal and oil on average, but at the end of the day it still originates from fossil fuels, and fossil fuels themselves are inherently non-renewable. Additionally, natural gas releases significant amounts of methane, making it far less climate-friendly than previously thought.
To look at this matter from a more general perspective, Figure 2 provides another visualization of the local government’s greenhouse gas emissions, but now considering all total emissions, broken down only by fuel type. The largest emitter is thus electricity at 40.70%, and natural gas follows as a close second at 33.29%. These two fuel types are by far the largest, with all other packed bubbles appearing much smaller in comparison. These packed bubbles and their corresponding numbers represent the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions of each fuel type against the total of all greenhouse gas emissions produced by the Boston municipal government. Though the largest fuel type is electricity, we should not instantly assume that this fuel type is “clean,” as electricity emissions may be generated from a wide variety of sources, including fossil fuels but also including renewables like wind and solar.
Figure 2
We’ve examined the different fuel types and even sectors across which the Boston municipality emits the most, but why do buildings account for so much of the total emissions as we saw in Figure 1? Luckily, the original dataset provided by the Boston government’s website also includes the greenhouse gas emissions by department. Figure 3 provides a pie chart with the breakdown of greenhouse gas emissions by department, with the percentages of the five largest emitters. BPS, Boston Public Schools, quickly comes out as the largest portion of the pie. Why is the public school system responsible for the most emissions? According to their website, Boston Public Schools educates more than 54,000 students across 125 schools. If we imagine the amount of energy required to run these 125 schools providing education to so many students, we can begin to understand why BPS is responsible for 42.81% of all GHG emissions. As it turns out, schools are one of the top public sector energy consumers, as their operations are varied: school buses, light and energy required to power such a large building, food services and waste, digital and print resources, and more.
Figure 3
And yet, Boston’s Climate Action Plan still provides almost no clarification on the exact measures being taken to transition its energy sources, and vague explanations on its plans to make municipal buildings more “climate ready.” Boston has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions annually over the past decade. However, the reductions are not enough, as the city is still not on track to meet its own goals outlined in its climate policies. Though Boston may still have reason to boast its environmental policies elsewhere or more broadly, the Climate Action Plan could benefit from a more concrete enactment of energy transition.
Click here to access the original dataset