President Barack Obama announced today that — in accordance with his ambitious plans to battle climate change — the federal government will reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions by 28 percent by 2020. The cuts should save money (off its nearly $24.5 billion electric and fuel bills), improve efficiency and even create jobs, he said.
The first step toward making significant reductions will be to measure how much various government departments and agencies are currently emitting — not to mention how much water, gas and heat they are using, and how much waste they are producing. All of this will add up to an environmental profile for the government — the country’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases by far. It will be interesting to see if wind and solar energy sources are also diverted to serve government needs and clean up its power mix.
An increased focus on measurement could also be good news for companies like Picarro, Enviance, Hara and Carbonetworks, which provide tools for measuring atmospheric carbon, tracking emissions and other resources, and tallying the financial impact of consumption. We’ll keep a close eye on who the government brings in to do this dirty work for them.
If the government successfully reduces GHG emissions by 28 percent, it’s estimated that 205 million barrels of oil will be saved — the equivalent of taking 17 million cars off the road for one year.
Obama is on a climate change tear these days, starting with major proposals to diversify energy sources and jumpstart the green collar economy in his State of the Union address on Wednesday. Yesterday, he told the United Nations that, despite failures to pass coherent climate change legislation in Congress, the U.S. will work toward a 17 percent reduction in emissions by 2020 (from 2005 levels). Whether or not this will give legislators a push remains to be seen.
Today’s announcement is also in line with an executive order Obama issued in the fall of 2009, requesting federal agencies and departments to hit other environmental targets — including a 26 percent improvement in water efficiency by 2020, a 50 percent increase in recycling over simple waste disposal by 2015, and the achievement of carbon neutral buildings by 2030.