Cool News
Midwest cities fare poorly on per-capita carbon emissions
New research from the Brookings Institution shows that most urban areas in the Midwest rank emit more carbon than their counterparts on the West Coast. The Brookings report ranks 100 U.S. metropolitan areas, and found that western cities have relatively smaller carbon footprints in part because of warmer weather, but also because of cleaner hydroelectric power. Chicago ranked 15th best in the nation, but other Midwest cities fell further down the list. Cleveland, for example, ranked 31 and Detroit came in 37; Minneapolis-St. Paul came in at number 47. Toledo, Cincinnati and Indianapolis were near the bottom of the list. The full ranking can be downloaded from Brookings’ website here [pdf file] and individual city profiles are here. The report also includes policy recommendations, the New York Times reports, “including federal legislation setting a price on carbon emissions, increasing financing for energy research and development, revising federal policies that reward states with high levels of travel and fuel use and providing more, and more predictable, financial support of mass transit.”
« Return to Cool News.
