NextGen

Study Suggests U.S. Cities are Underreporting Carbon Emissions by 18.3 Percent

TrafficJam A recent study according to Bloomberg Vulcan Project , an initiative jointly funded by NASA and te Department. of Energy, which tracks emissions at the scale of individual factories, power plants, roadways and neighborhoods on an hourly basis. This is likely far more sophisticated than the means at city governments' disposal.

After comparing the two sets of data, the study reported that the difference between what's reported and what's been found via the Vulcan Project is nearly equivalent to the 2015 Massachusetts state emissions; if this difference were extrapolated to all U.S. cities, the difference would be 23.5 percent larger than the entire 2015 California state emissions.

The study says that differences arise because city inventories omit particular fuels and source types and estimate transportation emissions differently.

"These results raise concerns about self-reported inventories in planning or assessing emissions, and warrant consideration of the new urban greenhouse gas information system recently developed by the scientific community," said the study abstract.