Seventeen of the 45 cities with plans have implemented new or updated plans since the Trump administration took office in January 2017. City-based climate commitments appear to be on the upswing. With that said, the GHG reduction targets established by cities frequently comport with good practice in that they often target 80% GHG emissions decreases by the year 2050 - in line with the mitigation pathways modeled by the IPCC that limit warming to 2☌ but slightly behind the mitigation pathways that, if scaled globally, would limit warming to 1.5☌. cities’ pledge-setting is sub-optimal in its coverage and design, with less than half of large cities setting targets, and most targets remaining non-binding. An additional 22 cities have committed to reducing GHG emissions but have not yet established specific emission reduction targets or completed a baseline GHG emission inventory upon which to base a reduction plan. Of the 100 most populous cities in the United States, only 45 have established greenhouse gas reduction targets and corresponding baseline GHG inventories. Where the goals exist, they tend to align with the 80%-decrease-by 2050 mitigation pathway consistent with the Paris Climate Accord, but tend to fall short of the mitigation pathways that limit warming to 1.5☌elsius (C) modeled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (i.e., net zero anthropogenic CO₂ emissions around year 2050). cities have established GHG reduction targets. The report draws five major conclusions about an emissions-pledge system that is generating genuine but partial climate actions: For the sake of completeness we focus on 2017, the last year of complete records when this research began, though we are mindful that city-based action continues.

In this fashion, the information addresses the current array of results on the ground in order to inform ongoing discussions of the potential and limits of “bottom-up” climate strategies in the COVID era. cities appear to be on track to meet their pledges.

cities estimates the emissions savings that could result from those pledges and then evaluates whether U.S. Hence this report: Given the increasing importance of “bottom-up” action on climate, this analysis inventories the various GHG reduction pledges and commitments of the 100 largest U.S. Are they working in the absence of binding national regulations? What kind of results are emerging? How far can city action go without bigger efforts at other levels, including federal? Are city goals or pledges meaningful given the share of emissions from goods and services used by the city occur outside the city boundary and that the city does not have control of? Yet, at the same time, questions persist about the efficacy of city pledges. At their best, the plans have exemplified the hope that “bottom-up” actions could add up to a powerful approach to climate mitigation, especially given rollbacks in federal policy under the Trump administration including the government’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. These local plans - which entail a GHG emission inventory and the establishment of reduction targets, reduction strategies, and monitoring efforts - have been celebrated as an important counterpoint to federal drift. Since 1991, over 600 local governments in the United States have developed CAPs that include GHG inventories and reduction targets.

One place to start such an assessment is to look at the nation’s many Climate Action Plans (CAPs). That requires looking far beyond the gridlock of Washington to the nation’s interior - especially to the local level. Given that, it seems important to take the pulse of what the country has been actually saying and doing on climate change, especially through its local commitments to reduce emissions. Plausibly, the places that were highly-committed to action on climate before the pandemic will remain committed, while places that were reluctant to put much priority in climate earlier will be even more reluctant in the midst of economic uncertainty and uncertain priorities. 1 Those massive current declines are likely temporary, but they raise important questions about the trajectory of emissions as the economic crisis abates and economic activity resumes. The COVID-19 crisis has precipitated the largest decline of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on record.

Us carbon emissions