柯林斯堡逐步增加，批准加速气候目标

Sometimes leadership arises from impatience. In Fort Collins, Colorado—a city known for its pragmatic, can-do attitude—getting on with the business of reducing greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t have to wait for international treaties, federal mandates orcarbon taxes。This month, the Fort Collins City Council voluntarily adopted revised climate action goals that rank among the most ambitious of any city in the world.

Under the new goals, the city aims to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2030 across all sectors relative to 2005 levels. The latter goal is a full 20 years sooner than the “80 by ’50” goal传统上由其他主要城市设置。Fort Collins also aspires to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

These new goals aren’t just some politician’s pipe dream. The Council’s vote brought to fruition a multi-year process that has engaged community leaders, local businesses, citizen advisory groups, the communities’ generation and distribution utilities and other partners, including Rocky Mountain Institute andeLab。Together they evaluated the risks and opportunities of alternative approaches to reducing carbon emissions.

Those approaches have been subject to discussion, analysis and review that have laid the groundwork for real actions, led by city government and柯林斯堡的市政公用事业, to stimulate hundreds of millions of dollars of new investments in efficiency and renewables in the years ahead, bringing substantial cumulative net benefits to the community ranging from a conservative $2 billion to potentially more than $6 billion by 2050.

一个nd while this process has not been easy—discussions have unearthed stakeholder differences, and the real work of implementation lies ahead—it has created something valuable: a plan that focuses on community investment and social well-being producing net financial benefits. Indeed, RMI’s independent analysis demonstrates these investments will begin producing real financial benefits to the community close to 2030.

它开始与一个区

The road to this landmark city council vote officially adopting the accelerated climate target has been long in the making, beginning in 1999, when the Fort Collins City Council passed a resolution committing the city to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions significantly by 2010. However, community stakeholders were concerned that Fort Collins was not on track to reach such goals, and The Fort Collins Sustainability Group initiated a resolution for the city to form a climate task force.

该决议过去了，专案组开始开发建议的过程。这个特别工作组到位于2007年，并在同一年，企业和市领导的联盟来共同打造计划FortZED, a zero-energy district planned for Fort Collins’ downtown business district and theColorado State University campus。

该项目FortZED吸引了$ 11百万个联邦拨款，以支持电网控制系统，为本地负载管理的开发和测试。更重要的是，它创造了基础CSU，市之间的持续对话，柯林斯堡公用事业and local businesses.

这种对话继续早已过了联邦拨款到期，的伞下科罗拉多州清洁能源集群, a nonprofit economic development corporation focused on supporting the state’s clean energy companies through public and academic partnerships.

Expanding goals across the city

然后在2012年，RMI的该电子实验室的柯林斯堡Utilities是创始成员之一，促进了与社区领导，当地企业和外部专家专家研讨会，探讨能来为未来和FortZED柯林斯堡什么。这引发了关于加快全市范围内的能源目标的对话。

作为后续该专家研讨会，RMI与柯林斯堡公用事业合作在2030年评估的成本和收益，以加快城市的温室气体排放目标的社会实现80个％的减排这一分析报告达到高潮Stepping Up: Benefits and Cost of Accelerating Fort Collins’ Energy and Climate Goals。

根据对部分Stepping Up结果,柯林斯堡的市议会城市sta问道ff to work with a broadly-based citizens advisory committee to develop a climate action plan to achieve accelerated goals of 80 percent emissions reductions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050. This process led directly to the Council’s historic vote this week to formally adopt the new goals.

一个mere 15 years away from today, this aggressive goal—two decades faster than RMI’s own vision for a national energy transformation outlined in重塑火—was made possible by several national and local opportunities. Macro trends such as faster-than-projected cost declines for key technologies such as solar PV, wind, and electrified transportation, coupled with new financing models, enable accelerated customer adoption. Locally, Fort Collins can take advantage of smart urban planning applied to an already-strong growth rate, as well as a business community that cares about the city.

前方的路

对于一个城市刚刚超过15万人，无论是投资规模的要求，并实现效益大，强调现实，而清洁能源经济是随着时间的推移大幅受益，前期资本要求显著高于业务通常。不出意外的话，融资是柯林斯堡战略的重要组成部分。

Financing will take place at many scales. For example, the utility will require financing to invest in clean central generation, and the city will require financing to invest in infrastructure upgrades. But perhaps most critical for a community of Fort Collins’s makeup will be the ability for customers to make investments for their homes and offices.

Fort Collins’s building stock is responsible for 53 percent of emissions, and efficiency investments can do much more than lower those emissions: They improve comfort and health, increase home values, and add vitality to neighborhoods. However, home and office retrofits are challenging to scope and complete; as a result, adoption rates are often quite low.

柯林斯堡的网站包括住宅公用设施使用计算器和养护技巧。

柯林斯堡工具已经发挥了核心作用，使社区的同时催化节能建筑采用分散投资。它最近批准的更新其对-票据融资计划，允许融资效率，包括分配租户和业主之间的费用（许可）的能力，配合升级的寿命更长融资条款前所未有的访问和灵活性，较低的利息率和更容易的审批程序。

一个更为雄心勃勃的做法被认为-的综合实用的服务模式developed with RMI’s support—would allow the utility to centrally deliver energy services (efficiency, distributed renewables and value-added services) in the same way it currently delivers electricity: at scales that will achieve cost savings, with high-quality service, and be paid for on customers’ electricity bills. This approach, if adopted, could allow the utility to diversify its business model while providing new services to customers and playing a pivotal role in the community’s energy transition.

为了在2030年实现其新的目标，柯林斯堡已经概述的战略和战术多样化的菜单，以减少通过提高效率和分布式太阳能采用建筑排放量减少40％，79％，从2005年的水平减少从公用电力系统的碳排放量，减少好用的买球外围app网站交通碳排放量57％，从2005年的水平，并创建一个零废物社会。

有几个关键的主题使城市的做法尤其令人振奋的，包括专注于投资在本地（而不是通过区域经济共同体的采购为例），并通过严格关注成本。虽然它可能在由专门对他们的效用依靠解决他们面临的能源挑战是很有诱惑力的社区看，柯林斯堡的方法包括显著社区组成部分，包括分布式可再生能源，重点街区和“精明增长”与投资效率在家用和商用规模。

Driving down costs through scaling is also a key part of Fort Collins strategy. For many of the carbon emissions reduction tactics planned, implementing at scale, through coordinated, integrated neighborhood and citywide campaigns, will help to reduce costs. Indeed, city-level procurements of solar, such as the popular Solarize campaigns as well as direct city procurements such asSF SunShares，都表现出显着更低的成本和更高的采用率。同样是像那些在拟议的综合公共服务模型考虑效率的投资可能是真的。

多米诺骨牌效应

对于那些希望从柯林斯堡的办法来实现意义深远的目标去学习，有四个主要组成部分重点关注：

• 一个collaborative and iterative goal-setting processthat engages community participation, dialogue, and engagement.
• 一个创作新电力公司的商业模式，或者一些等价的交付模式, to effectively finance and deliver energy efficiency services and support greater investment in distributed resources, even as traditional electricity sales decline.
• 一套全面的实施策略旨在实现里程碑式的采用水平efficient and clean technologies in buildings, transportation, and other sectors, and the required behavioral changes necessary to realize savings.
• 的关键方法快速缩放and technologies to drive down costs.

In the meantime, this week’s vote in Fort Collins sets a new standard for community climate action. If the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, this Northern Colorado city just stepped up and took a big leap forward toward climate action that makes others look like they’re simply shuffling their feet in comparison. Regardless of whether others soon follow in Fort Collins’ accelerated footsteps remains, those of us closest to the city will watch closely with eager excitement to see what happens next.

这篇文章最初出现在RMI出口。