Intersecting Residential and Transportation CO2 Emissions: Metropolitan Climate Change Programs in the Age of Trump

Abstract

This article uses a series of fixed-ratio projections and scenarios to explore the potential for local residential energy conservation mandates and compact growth programs to reduce locally based CO2 emissions in eleven representative US metropolitan areas. Averaged across all eleven metros, residential energy conservation mandates could reduce residential CO2 emissions in 2030 by an average of 30 percent over and above 2010 levels. In terms of implementation, residential conservation standards were found to be goal-effective, cost-effective, scale-effective, and in the case of new construction standards, reasonably resistant to local political pushback. Local compact growth programs do not perform as well. If accompanied by aggressive efforts to get drivers out of their cars, compact growth programs could reduce auto-based 2030 CO2 emissions by as much as 25 percent over and above any emissions reductions attributable to higher fuel economy standards. Unaccompanied by modal diversion programs, the stand-alone potential for local compact growth programs to reduce auto-based CO2 emissions falls into a more modest range of 0 to 7 percent depending on the metropolitan area. Based on past performance, local compact growth programs are also likely to have problems in terms of their goal- and scale-efficiency, and their potential to incur political pushback.