CRed - The Community Carbon Reduction Project at UNC-Chapel Hill

We turned next to developing the needed carbon dioxide emissions inventory for the city. This included developing a separate inventory for municipal operation of City Council and for all other carbon-producing sectors in the city (residential, transport, commercial, industrial, university and colleges). The results are summarized at Carbon Dioxide Reduction in Cambridge. That site contains information on:

• The links between carbon dioxide reduction and improvements in Human Health, since reducing carbon dioxide emissions often brings concurrent reductions in emissions of particulates and other pollutants
• Policies of carbon dioxide reduction for the Transport sector in Cambridge
• Policies of carbon dioxide reduction for the Business and Industry sector in Cambridge
• Policies of carbon dioxide reduction for the Residential sector in Cambridge
• Policies of carbon dioxide reduction for the University sector in Cambridge
• Policies of carbon dioxide reduction for the Municipal sector in Cambridge
• Tips on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from individuals in Cambridge
• The economic feasibility of policies that might be selected in the City of Cambridge

In addition, the team produced two EXCEL-based models of the emissions inventory, through which specific policies and their effects on total emissions can be simulated. These can be downloaded as:

• City of Cambridge Energy and Carbon Model, showing the emissions from the entire city
• Cambridge City Council Energy and Carbon Model, showing only the emissions from municipal operations

In viewing these models, be aware that there are a number of organizations producing carbon dioxide inventories for the country of England, and they embed Cambridge in these inventories. They can produce inventories that differ slightly from the ones you will find at the links above, because of the ways in which these other organizations divided the emissions between different municipalities and sectors. We have tried to keep our inventories as close as possible to those created by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs so our inventories can be placed inside later regional and national inventories.

• Download the DEFRA report Local and Regional CO2 Emissions Estimates for 2003
• Download the EXCEL file on DEFRA emissions estimates

Keep in mind that creating these inventories is an inexact science at best. We try to be as accurate as possible, but we also don't let a passion for increasing number of decimal places in emissions estimates prevent us from creating an approximate inventory so we can at least identify the most important sources of emissions, and get on with the task of finding policies to reduce these emissions.