The City of Fort Collins has released its 2019 community carbon inventory report to track progress toward the Fort Collins Climate Action Plan goals.
The report shows that Fort Collins’s greenhouse gas emissions are seven percent below baseline levels in 2005. The goals of the Fort Collins Climate Action Plan (CAP) aim to be 20 percent below 2005 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, and ultimately carbon neutral by the year 2050.
The report shows that community emissions per capita are down 28 percent compared to 2005 levels regardless of growth and the change in methodology to include industrial emissions. The 2018 community carbon inventory reported that emissions were fourteen percent below levels in 2005.
The change in trajectory from 2018 to 2019 is mainly due to Industrial Process and Product Use (IPPU) emissions being added for the first time in the 2019 inventory. Changes in methodology are common and a best practice with new data sources emerging or protocols for inventories changing.
The City of Fort Collins follows the Global Protocol for Community-scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GPC), which is a standard protocol used by more than 10,000 communities world-wide. Current forecasts reveal that emissions are expected to be roughly seventeen percent below 2005 in the 2020 report and 26 percent by this year.
Transformational changes in natural gas, transportation, and electricity will be necessary to reach an 80 percent reduction by 2030.
For more information regarding Fort Collins’ 2019 Community Greenhouse Gas Report, including where to read it in its entirety, visit: https://www.fcgov.com/climateaction/reports