Area’s carbon footprint increasing

• By AMY WOLD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 29, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:15 a.m.

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The carbon footprint of  the Baton Rouge metropolitan area grew at almost three times the per capita rate of the footprint of the average U.S. metropolitan area between 2000 and 2005, a national survey released Wednesday says.

The lack of regional public transportation is one of the culprits, a local official said.

Despite the growth in the size of its carbon footprint, the Baton Rouge metro area ranks 48th of 100 metropolitan areas for carbon footprint per capita, in the survey by the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

The report only examines highway transportation and residential uses of energy which represent about half of the emissions of carbon in the U.S., said Marilyn Brown, professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and one of the report’s authors.

Industry, non-highway travel and other sources of carbon dioxide were not included.

The report is part of a multi-year effort by the program — dubbed Blueprint for American Prosperity — to promote sustainable growth in metropolitan areas.

“Our view of prosperity is not just about the economy,” Mark Muro, policy director of the program, said in a telephone conference Wednesday. “Sustainability is what we’re here to talk about.”

The report, titled “Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Metropolitan America,” outlines recommendations to the federal government to help reduce the carbon output of metropolitan areas, including promoting more transit options and requiring an “energy cost” during home sales.

The “carbon footprint” of a person or area is that amount of greenhouse gas — measured by carbon dioxide — that contributes to overall increases in atmospheric carbon. This atmospheric carbon in turn contributes to global climate change.

“Climate scientists are calling for significant cuts in carbon emissions,” Brown noted.

The report by the nonprofit public policy institute uses the term “carbon footprint,” but it measures carbon, not carbon dioxide, Brown said.

The lowest per capita carbon footprint in the country is Honolulu, at 1.3 metric tons per capita, followed by the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif., area and the Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Oregon and Washington area.

“Large metro areas offer more carbon efficiency than smaller areas,” Brown said, partly because they offer better public transportation options.