As a global community, we’ve been pretty good at making commitments on climate change, but we get failing grades on following through on those commitments and on investment and climate adaptation.A couple of recent local items got me thinking about how we are doing here at home in Concord.
The first was Town Meeting approval of Article 31, declaring a state of climate emergency and updating our Green House Gas goals to align with the state’s goals of a 50 percent reduction by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050. The second item was the recent announcement that Concord’s Municipal Light Plant’s energy is now 100 percent carbon free.
With these items in mind, we can begin to question just how well we are doing locally. The answer is not too bad, but the outlook is not too good.
Earlier this year, Concord’s Climate Action Committee and its Sustainability office prepared an updated town GHG inventory based on 2022 data (the most recent available). That data indicates we have made good progress in reducing our carbon footprint — a 37 percent reduction from the baseline year of 2008.
This comes as no surprise, as CMLP has been steadily reducing the carbon content of our energy supply — 95 percent of provided energy in 2022 was carbon free, and in 2023 it was entirely carbon free.
However, it’s important to note Concord’s 37 percent reduction in GHGs to date was due chiefly to CMLP’s drive to reduce the GHG-emitting energy sources in its energy portfolio. Since that portfolio is now 100% non-emitting, future reductions will need to come entirely from non-CMLP sectors.
We should certainly be pleased with CMLP’s milestone, but we must also recognize that we have already picked the local low-hanging fruit of a carbon-free energy supply. And that we need to substantially accelerate our efforts to reduce residential, municipal, commercial, and school building GHG emissions.
Jerry Frenkil
Jennie Dugan Road
The author is a member of Concord’s Climate Action Committee, writing on his own behalf.