{"id":232,"date":"2018-06-29T06:40:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T06:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/?p=232"},"modified":"2018-06-29T06:48:53","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T06:48:53","slug":"boston-takes-on-climate-action-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/boston-takes-on-climate-action-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Takes On Climate Action Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Jared Sargent<\/p>\n<p>The trees that Boston officials have been planting around the city aren\u2019t just a nice part of the scenery; they\u2019re removing damaging greenhouse gas emissions from the air.<\/p>\n<p>The effort is part of the city\u2019s Climate Action Plan, which intends to reduce Boston\u2019s net carbon footprint to zero by 2050. The plan will lower the city\u2019s emissions in steps: aiming for a 25 percent reduction by 2020 and a 50 percent reduction by 2030, both based on 2005 conditions.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_234\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-234\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-234\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_2994-e1530235811190-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_2994-e1530235811190-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IMG_2994-e1530235811190-768x1024.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-234\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Environment Commissioner Carl Spector.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>According to the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, the city is on track for the 2020 benchmark; however, Boston\u2019s Environment Commissioner Carl Spector stressed that a great deal of work would still need to be done for Boston to reach the goal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe can\u2019t let up because there\u2019s still work to do,\u201d Spector said, \u201cBoston is continuing to grow, so we have to make sure we\u2019re more than compensating for the growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not all of Boston\u2019s efforts go according to plan, however. In 2007, Mayor Thomas Menino pledged that Boston would plant 100,000 trees by 2020. However, the city has struggled to meet these expectations.<\/p>\n<div class=\"piktowrapper-embed\" style=\"height: 300px; position: relative;\" data-uid=\"31165363-climate-change-in-boston\">\n<div class=\"pikto-canvas-wrap\">\n<div class=\"pikto-canvas\">\n<div class=\"embed-loading-overlay\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; text-align: center;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-top: 100px;\" src=\"https:\/\/create.piktochart.com\/loading.gif\" alt=\"Loading...\" width=\"60px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0; padding: 0; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: 600; font-size: 16px;\">Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>(function(d){var js, id=\"pikto-embed-js\", ref=d.getElementsByTagName(\"script\")[0];if (d.getElementById(id)) { return;}js=d.createElement(\"script\"); js.id=id; js.async=true;js.src=\"https:\/\/create.piktochart.com\/assets\/embedding\/embed.js\";ref.parentNode.insertBefore(js, ref);}(document));<\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have not made a lot of progress on the overall goal,\u201d Spector said, after discussing the tree planting at a City Council meeting, \u201cWe\u2019ve had an increase in what are called street trees, but street trees are only about 10 percent of the total number of trees in Boston.\u201d<br \/>\nEnergy use in buildings accounts for about three quarters of the city\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions. According to a Climate Action Plan update, Boston\u2019s focus on green building standards has played a considerable role in greenhouse gas reductions.<\/p>\n<p>City officials have also taken steps to include the community in the plan. The Greenovate Boston program seeks to inform Bostonians about climate change and also get people involved in finding solutions.<\/p>\n<p>Spector spoke to the city\u2019s efforts to involve the community, listing community meetings, advisory committees and a climate leaders program used to obtain feedback as just a few ways the Boston community is engaged in the effort.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolicies and programs won\u2019t be effective if they don\u2019t have the general support of the community. And that\u2019s all sectors of the community,\u201d Spector said, \u201cAll different neighborhoods, all different parts of the economy, all different institutions- we need them to be engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jared Sargent The trees that Boston officials have been planting around the city aren\u2019t just a nice part of the scenery; they\u2019re removing damaging greenhouse gas emissions from the air. The effort is part of the city\u2019s Climate Action Plan, which intends to reduce Boston\u2019s net carbon footprint to zero by 2050. The plan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[23],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}