DC has until 2050 to reach carbon neutrality. GGWash will cover how we get there.

The world is feeling the impacts of climate change—extreme temperatures, melting glaciers, floods, and the real risk of hundreds of thousands of people being displaced from their homes.

DC created a plan with an aggressive timeclock to deal with climate change. The District plans to use 100% renewable energy sources and cut 50% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2032. It also plans to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

Three decades may seem like a long time, but for comparison, that’s about a third of the time it took to build the National Cathedral.

Carbon neutrality is the centerpiece of DC’s climate plan. But what is carbon neutrality anyway? What would a District that is carbon neutral even look like if we achieve our goal? And what might it look like if we don’t?

What is carbon neutrality?

For a city to achieve carbon neutrality, it must absorb as much carbon dioxide as it puts out into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the main component of greenhouse gases, which trap heat in our atmosphere. Greenhouse gases also include methane and nitrous oxide. While carbon and these other gases are naturally occurring, human activities have severely amplified the amount present in the atmosphere. According to numerous scientific studies, this is the leading cause of climate change.

According to the Department of Energy and Environment, DC produced 7.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas in 2017. This is the environmental equivalent of consuming close to 359,000 tanker trucks worth of gasoline, or 63 million barrels of oil, or burning 148,931 railcars worth of coal.

Practically everything we do involves emitting carbon or other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Every time we take our car out for a drive, every time we order a cheeseburger at a restaurant, and every time we send a file to our office printer, we send greenhouse gases skyward.

This is what makes DC’s plan for carbon neutrality so ambitious, and at the same time, so confusing to explain.

Dr. Elisabeth Hamin Infield, a professor of regional planning at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who teaches courses in climate change planning, said there are two things to consider when trying to deal with climate change: mitigation and adaptation.

“There’s mitigation, which is the carbon neutrality,” and then, she said, there’s adaptation which involves planning for the effects of a changing climate in ways that ensure “people, ecosystems, and species are impacted as little” as possible.

With carbon coming from most anything, and present almost everywhere, where does the race to carbon neutrality even start? For DC planners, it begins with taking on the biggest source of all greenhouse gas emissions. And no, it’s not cheeseburgers or office paper.

Buildings and transportation

Buildings are responsible for a total 74% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the city, according to DC’s climate and energy action plan. Transportation is second, accounting for 24% of emissions.

As it turns out, an outdated HVAC system, or your old windows can certainly impact the environment. That’s because traditional methods of heating and cooling suck up a whole lot of energy, and depending on the source, it can churn out a massive amount of greenhouse gas, which brings us to the next complication for this kind of planning.

Summers in DC will progressively become hotter and bring forward increased days of extreme heat. This means that residents will need to have increased access to resources to cool down. Infield said that this could be a complicated discussion since “air conditioning is really bad for greenhouse gases, but it’s also really good for public health.” She also pointed out that many people living in underserved or less-developed neighborhoods don’t have the same steady access to air-conditioning or energy-efficient infrastructure as those living elsewhere.

DC’s plan calls for creating and enforcing net-zero building codes for new buildings and “retrofitting” existing buildings so they are more efficient.

To deal with GHS emissions from transportation, the District will need to increase public transit options, encourage bicycling and walking, as well as pushing for more zero-emission vehicles.

And how do we reach carbon neutrality while taking into account the equity issues that may impact people as we make changes District-wide? What will a carbon neutral future look like?

According to Hamin Infield, “each city and region is going to have to figure out…the exact mix between changing over to renewables and doing energy efficiency,” to meet their targeted goals for greenhouse gas reduction.

The city will have to adapt its transit systems and energy infrastructure. It will also have to oversee the enforcement of building performance standards for new construction, not to mention figure out ways to creatively retrofit historic buildings to meet such standards. It may have to look at new power sources like wind.

In the coming weeks, I will be speaking to academics, city planners, elected officials, and other experts about carbon neutrality and climate change planning to find out what the city might look like in the year 2050. Most importantly, I will examine the challenges that lie on this road ahead. Hopefully, we can find a path forward together.