ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

In a nutshell, the challenge is this: Oregon is heading in one direction but we need to get somewhere very different. What do we need to do now—in particular, with a transportation package in 2009—to have a decent chance of having the kind of Oregon that makes sense a couple generations from now?

The question was made vivid to me by Damon Fordham, ODOT Sustainability Program Manager, who gave a presentation to the University of Oregon Live Move student group a couple days ago. In particular, the following slide caught my eye:

click on picture to enlarge image

In 1990, Oregon’s total greenhouse gas emissions totaled just under 60 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2E). Already by 2000, Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions had risen to just under 70 MMTCO2E. If the “business as usual” trend continues, Oregon will be up to almost 90 MMTCO2E by 2020, and perhaps up to 125 MMTCO2E by the year 2050.

Meanwhile, based on the best science available, the Governor’s Advisory Group on Global Warming recommended three targets for reducing Oregon’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this year, these targets were made into state policy with the adoption of House Bill 3543:

1. By 2010, arrest the growth of Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions and begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [i.e., stabilize emissions at just over 70 MMTCO2E].
2. By 2020, achieve greenhouse gas levels that are 10 percent below 1990 levels [i.e., reduce emissions to just over 50 MMTCO2E].
3. By 2050, achieve greenhouse gas levels that are at least 75 percent below 1990 levels [i.e., reduce emissions to roughly 15 MMTCO2E].

But a picture is worth a thousand words: The upper orange line is where we are heading; the lower red line is where we need to go. Closing the gap between 125 MMTCO2E and 15 MMTCO2E is the challenge.

Note that the transportation sector (car, truck, transit, rail, air, marine) accounts for 38% of Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions, which in 2050 would be almost 50 MMTCO2E if the “business as usual” trend continues—well about the target of just 15 MMTCO2E. Thus significant changes in transportation will need to occur if Oregon is to meet its target by 2050.

Also note that all these figures are for total emissions by the state, not per capita figures. As the population grows, the carbon footprint for each Oregonian will need to fall even more dramatically than the graph suggests: With more and more Oregonians, each of us will need to tread even more lightly on our fragile planet.

So make no mistake. The task before us is as challenging as it is critical. But many times in the past, Oregon has led the nation: The initiative system, the Beach Bill, the Bottle Bill, and our landmark land use planning program. The good news is that we don’t have to meet the targets today. We have a couple generations to do so. But make no mistake, if we are to succeed, we need to begin today.

In particular, the challenge for transportation reform advocates is this: What does Oregon’s transportation system need to look like in 2050 in order for the transportation sector to meet its share of the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Then working backwards, what do we need to begin doing now to get us there?

Let’s roll up our sleeves and get started.

Note: This post originally appear on the Oregon Transportation Reform Activists Network (OTRAN).

Global warming is not just another environmental issue.

It’s not “just another issue,” period.

Absent decisive actions across the globe of the sort proposed in this report, the warming already underway is expected to lead to changes in the earth’s physical and biological systems that would be extremely adverse to human beings, their communities, economies and cultures. These are changes that we would have unintentionally brought upon ourselves, but that are also in our power to reverse. Our failure to return atmospheric accumulations of greenhouse gases (GHG) back to levels that will sustain historic climate patterns may lead to an Earth that is dramatically altered and far less habitable within only a few generations.

The impacts of such changes on Oregon citizens, businesses and environmental values are likely to be extensive and destructive. Coastal and river flooding, snowpack declines, lower summer river flows, impacts to farm and forest productivity, energy cost increases, public health effects, and increased pressures on many fish and wildlife species are some of the effects anticipated by scientists at Oregon and Washington universities.

The means to arrest and reverse these effects are at hand or within technological reach. Many of them carry co-benefits that would justify acting on them without the impetus of global warming: positive economic returns on dollars invested in energy efficiency, energy price stability, and healthier air and water. Others will cost us something up front for insurance against the deeply disruptive and costly effects that we can expect absent any action. The earlier we take many of these actions, the less drastic they will have to be to achieve the same emissions reduction result.

—Oregon Strategy for Greenhouse Gas Reductions, Governor’s Advisory Group On Global Warming, December 2004