Achievement

Matt Cox has initiated a research program examining ways to reduce and manage energy use and CO2 emissions in urban contexts. A challenge to this effort is that energy and emissions data are not readily available at the MSA level, particularly by sector. Thus, indirect approaches must be used to estimate energy consumption and CO2 emissions from each economic sector of an MSA, which can be aggregated to the MSA as a whole. Such information is critical to understanding how policy can change these emission patterns. The research goal is to understand what drives existing carbon and energy footprints and what approaches will be successful in modifying these trajectories to move towards sustainable development. The approach is to use the National Energy Modeling System (used by the US DoE to project future energy consumption), Greenhouse Development Rights Framework and the concept of Adaptive Management.