Vermont’s newly minted Global Warming Solutions Act requires the state to cut 80% of carbon greenhouse emissions by 2050. But how, exactly, will the state know where those emissions are coming from?
The Department of Environmental Conservation keeps track of statewide emissions, which are broken into sectors such as transportation, energy and agriculture. But towns and counties don’t often track local emissions.
As the Vermont Climate Council drafts policies to curb emissions, this lack of local, source-specific data could pose a challenge.
A study finalized last month has addressed this problem in Addison County. Members of the county’s Climate Economy Action Center, a nonprofit organization based in Middlebury, identified the county’s largest sources of greenhouse gas in 2017. It’s the first time emissions have been reported solely for Addison County.
Researchers examined emissions from the three greenhouse gases with the most climate impact: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
Transportation, buildings and agriculture sectors contributed the most emissions in the county in 2017.
“The analysis fills a gap in what was known about local emissions and creates a basis for measuring the effects of present and future efforts to reduce emissions,” said Richard Hopkins, a member of Action Center’s board of directors.
Hopkins, a retired epidemiologist, created a similar county level study in Tallahassee, Florida, before moving to Middlebury.
“The idea is that this document is a baseline, and identifies the nature and extent of the problem,” he said. “It doesn’t tell us whether it’s getting better or getting worse currently, because we don’t have five or 10 or 20 years of data. And so we’re gonna have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get the next year’s data and the following year’s data.”
Hopkins said members of the Climate Economy Action Center were inspired by a similar study that tracked emissions in Chittenden County several years ago, but he doesn’t believe any other similar studies exist across the state.
With Middlebury College student Acadia Hegedus, Hopkins said they tracked down information such as the distribution of sedans and SUVs in the county, how many miles are typically traveled on county roads, and how many gallons of fuel were sold by distributors such as Maplefields. They also solicited and compiled numerous records about the county from the state. Some of these endeavors required a bit of estimation and guesswork, so the results aren’t perfectly precise.
“It’s not as direct and simple as you would think it might be,” he said.
Findings point to Addison County’s large farming industry, which is home to about 25% of the state’s dairy cattle. Agriculture accounted for 40.8% of the county’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2017. Statewide, agriculture makes up only 12.2% of emissions.
Within the farming sector, 60% of emissions were contributed by enteric fermentation — a process where methane gas is produced while livestock digest food. Overall, around 24% of Addison County’s greenhouse gas emissions come from belching cows.
Manure management and soil handling practices also contributed to agriculture emissions.
Transportation accounted for 27.2% of emissions in Addison County, with passenger vehicles contributing 78% of that; about 21% of the county’s emissions come from passenger cars. Buildings and industrial operations contributed 25.9% of emissions, and sewage treatment processes produced 2.7%.
Hopkins said the report doesn’t include a plan to curb emissions. That will be left to policymakers and the Vermont Climate Council.
While the Addison County report identifies sources of emissions that cause climate change, researchers from the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute for Environment have been looking into the local impacts of climate change.
Gillian Galford, research associate professor at UVM and a fellow with the Gund Institute, has been studying local-level changes to the environment through the Vermont Climate Assessment.
“It is meant to help people understand how climate is changing near them in ways that national information or global information doesn’t provide,” she said.
Galford said the study, last updated in 2014, is designed to give Vermonters access to local and statewide data so they can plan for climate change through both policy decisions and business decisions.
“Local information is really helpful if you want to change the way you’re doing things,” Galford said. “Maybe you want to change policies at the state level, or make policies consider climate change. Maybe it’s not a law or a requirement that you do something differently. Say you’re a farmer, you may want to adjust what you’re doing to better prepare for the impacts of climate change. That could mean taking advantage of new opportunities, as well.”
The Gund Institute will publish an updated version of the Vermont Climate Assessment next summer.
For Hopkins, reducing emissions at the state level is also critical. A report from the Department of Environmental Conservation says gross emissions in Vermont for 2016 were about 13% above the 1990 baseline levels.
“The state as a whole is behind the eight ball,” he said. “The greenhouse gas emissions for Vermont, over the past 30 years, have actually been edging up rather than down. So this Climate Council is gonna have its work cut out for it.”
