[ad_1]
Statewide Local weather Options Powered by Georgia Tech Analysis Debut
By
Michael Pearson | October 19, 2020
• Atlanta, GA
By Michael Pearson
Drawdown Georgia, the statewide effort powered by analysis from the Georgia Institute of Expertise and different universities to seek out cost-effective methods to drastically reduce the state’s carbon footprint, publicly rolls out its prime 20 options this week.
Led by famous vitality and local weather coverage skilled Marilyn Brown, Regents and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Programs within the School of Public Policy, the cross-campus analysis crew recognized options that would, primarily based on present science, reduce the state’s CO2 emissions by one-third by 2030.
“Our work exhibits Georgia already has the mandatory instruments to cut back its carbon emissions by a 3rd within the subsequent ten years, and do it in a approach that doesn’t hurt the financial system,” Brown mentioned. “These proposals really will pay for themselves and create a more healthy, extra affluent state.”
“In reality, adopting these objectives can put Georgia on a path to sustainably assembly the local weather objectives offered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change and the Paris Accord,” she mentioned.
The findings, and the science behind them, would be the topic of a webinar on Wednesday hosted by the Georgia Institute of Expertise. The occasion is free and open to the campus group.
Brown labored for greater than a 12 months alongside college members throughout Georgia Tech, in addition to Emory College, the College of Georgia, and Georgia State College to analysis and develop 20 suggestions in 5 high-impact areas: electrical energy, buildings and supplies, meals and agriculture, transportation, and the land.
Their proposals embody growing photo voltaic and electrical car capability, retrofitting buildings to be extra energy-efficient, lowering meals waste, and rising extra forests to absorb carbon emissions.
The crew additionally built-in concerns equivalent to fairness, financial progress, and public well being.
“One of many key co-benefits of those options is in air high quality enhancements that, for instance, will assist to cut back the possibility that our youngsters could have allergic reactions and bronchial asthma,” mentioned Beril Toktay, Brady Household Chair in Administration and professor within the Ray C. Anderson Heart for Sustainable Enterprise in the Scheller School of Enterprise.
Michael Oxman, a co-lead of the past carbon working group, mentioned the crew designed options that might be good for all Georgians.
“We wish to be sure that these options create advantages for all however maybe particularly for under-resourced populations which are most susceptible to local weather change impacts,” mentioned Oxman, who’s managing director of the Ray C. Anderson Heart and professor of the observe within the Scheller School of Enterprise.
Every proposal needed to meet 4 standards. It needed to be technologically and market prepared for Georgia. The state needed to have ample native expertise and information to implement them. They needed to take away not less than one megaton of carbon dioxide equal from the environment per 12 months. Lastly, they needed to be cost-effective.
Most of the proposals can pay for themselves, in line with the crew’s analysis. Such suggestions embody lowering meals waste, boosting rooftop photo voltaic, and cogeneration – the simultaneous era of electrical energy and thermal vitality for heating or cooling.
The analysis crew will additional refine the 20 options to an inventory of 5 high-priority motion objects. These might be featured in a statewide marketing campaign by Drawdown Georgia to encourage companies, personal sector teams, and residents to work collectively to place the state on the trail to a zero-emissions financial system by 2040.
In the meantime, the Georgia Tech crew’s work isn’t executed. Brown has already begun planning a dashboard that may assist every of Georgia’s 159 counties, and their residents, to trace progress on key parameters. An early model of the dashboard might be obtainable by subsequent summer season, Brown mentioned.
Additionally, the Scheller School of Enterprise will take the lead in company engagement efforts to convey enterprise on board to assist the objectives.
This week’s rollout includes a sequence of occasions, from a gap evening celebration on Saturday to a sequence of civic dinners. The marketing campaign plans to have interaction Georgia residents in citizen science and motion on local weather change.
Drawdown Georgia is predicated on Project Drawdown, based by environmentalist and creator Paul Hawken. That venture seeks to achieve “drawdown,” the purpose at which ranges of greenhouse gases within the environment begin to decline, as shortly, safely, and equitably as potential.
The Georgia effort is the primary within the nation to undertake the Mission Drawdown mannequin. The Ray C. Anderson Foundation is funding the venture, together with the analysis at Georgia Tech and different universities.
Along with Brown, different Georgia Tech researchers concerned within the work embody Daniel Matisoff from the College of Public Coverage, Kim Cobb of the College of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Mike Rodgers from the College of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rich Simmons in Mechanical Engineering and the Strategic Vitality Institute, and Laura Taylor, chair and professor within the College of Economics.
To view the total checklist of options, go to the Drawdown Georgia web site at https://www.drawdownga.org/
[ad_2]
Source link