April 22, 2009

San Diego's Outsized Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint of the average San Diegan -- including residential energy use and transportation -- is larger than that of the average resident of Los Angeles, CPI documents in an Earth Day policy brief.  The paper also shows that the City of San Diego lags behind LA in policies to reduce energy use.

San Diegans travel 23% more road miles per year than our notoriously car-reliant neighbors in LA - 9,463 miles per capita.  Less than 6% of San Diego's energy comes from renewable sources, far below the state-mandated 20% utility companies are required to reach by 2010.

Those are among the findings in Climate Change Performance and Policy: San Diego versus Los Angeles, issued today by CPI.

In recent years, Los Angeles has become a world leader in policy innovation to reduce energy use, using a combination of standards, incentives and public investment, said CPI Research and Policy Director Murtaza Baxamusa, Ph.D.  San Diego's policies, on the other hand, rely exclusively on voluntary incentives.  For example:

• Los Angeles is replacing all streetlights with low-energy lights and installing solar panels on city-owned properties, as well as retrofitting all city-owned buildings to meet green standards and applying the standards to new buildings.
  
• San Diego applies the standards only to new and remodeled city-owned buildings.
  
  

• Los Angeles requires all large construction projects to meet green building standards.
• San Diego offers private developers an expedited process if they voluntarily meet the standards.
  
  

• Los Angeles uses a combination of grants, loans and subsidies to help residents and businesses install solar power.
• San Diego has a financing program for homeowners and loans for businesses to install solar.  
  

The full report is available by clicking here.

Green jobs are not always good jobs
The solar and wind energy industries hold great promise for creating new manufacturing jobs, but in practice those jobs often don't pay enough to support a family.

Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First, writes in the American Prospect that clean-energy companies aren't always enlightened employers. And some companies applauded for opening new production plants in the US are simultaneously opening larger facilities in low-wage countries overseas.

Investing in America's Future
Research by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington indicates that funding transportation infrastructure will produce a strong economic benefit and the benefit from "green" investment is even greater.

The transportation report calculates that a $100 billion investment in transportation infrastructure will generate $160 billion in output and more than a million jobs, and will reduce wage inequality by expanding the number of unionized jobs. The green investment report finds that investing specifically in jobs designed for a low-carbon future may prove even more beneficial than generic infrastructure spending.

$8 a week or $250 million in six months?
Public infrastructure spending can accomplish much more than tax cuts, CPI Executive Director Donald Cohen writes in a blog published today on San Diego News Network.

The federal stimulus package gives taxpayers an average cut of $8 per week.  If that money was pooled for public spending, San Diego County alone would have $250 million in the first six months.  Cohen argues that money would have more impact if put toward needed public projects such as public transit or solar roofs.