Forecasting climate goals, PitCo board eyes airport and transportation as areas for mitigation and adaptation - The Aspen Times

Forecasting climate goals, PitCo board eyes airport and transportation as areas for mitigation and adaptation | AspenTimes.com

Forecasting climate goals, PitCo board eyes airport and transportation as areas for mitigation and adaptation

It’s time for Pitkin County to renew its Climate Action Plan (CAP), a document that will guide the county’s climate work through at least 2030.

“2030 is a big kind of check-in date in the climate world,” said Michael Port, the county’s climate action analyst, at Tuesday’s work session.

The CAP identifies overarching goals and actions for specific Pitkin County departments in both climate change mitigation and adaptation work. Greenhouse-gas emissions data is used as a baseline to gauge progress.

“We want this to be a kind of short-term actionable plan that focuses on high-impact actions that are within the departments’ span of control,” he said. “And really, the purpose is to identify who’s going to be responsible for taking those on.”

The county is leading a regional greenhouse-gas emissions study collecting 2023 data from unincorporated Pitkin County, the City of Aspen, the Town of Snowmass Village, and the Town of Basalt.

It’s an independent undertaking that local governments measure every three years, but the data will inform the CAP. The 2020 study showed unincorporated Pitkin County emitted an estimated 203,771 metric tons of CO2 equivalent with 58% of emissions associated with buildings, 37% from transportation, and 6% from waste.

“Our greenhouse gas inventory will tell us just how far we have to stretch in our CAP to really be pushing, and it will inform other goal-setting activities,” said Ashley Perl, resiliency and housing director.

Since 2014 when the greenhouse-gas inventory studies began, Port said the total tons of CO2 is trending downward. The emissions share informs target areas for the county.

That inventory breakdown informed a recent exterior energy budget change to the county land use code, capping outdoor amenity energy use at 200 million BTUs/year, which is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by 1° Fahrenheit (F).

He and Perl asked for feedback from the commissioners on their priorities for county focus in the CAP.

Commissioner Steve Child came prepared with a laundry list of priorities. He called out the Coal Basin Methane Project, sustainable aviation fuel at the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, diesel used to haul jet fuel to the airport, a possible waste-to-energy system at the Pitkin County Solid Waste Center, and another county solar panel farm.

“If we could get and have train cars hauling fuel over on the train tracks and storing them in a central location maybe in Glenwood, or maybe in Rifle, the Rifle airport could take advantage of this, too. If it was in Glenwood, maybe the Eagle airport,” he said. “We could have three airports cooperating and have train cars deliver a huge amount of aviation fuel or sustainable aviation fuel in a location much closer to us.”

Commissioner Francie Jacober brought up a recent interview with Aspen High School students and their idea to limit or outright eliminate cars per unit at the future Lumberyard affordable housing development at the Aspen Airport Business Center.

“That might be kind of hard to enforce. Americans don’t like to be told what to do; so we did discuss the possibility of committing to having one car per unit, which would be an improvement, and that would be something that a government could do,” she said. “It was an interesting idea, I thought, that came from a 16-year-old.”

Child reminded the board of the late Aspen mayor and famous pedestrian/public transit-taker Eve Homeyer, who lived in Aspen without a car for decades.

“(Homeyer) lived here for 20 years and didn’t own a car,” he said. “The residents at the Lumberyard could do that. Having people willingly not have a car, I think, is feasible. We should think more on how to talk the city into that.”

Other ideas thrown out by the board included regulating propane heaters at restaurant outdoor seating, electrifying any transportation that services the airport, are 100nd strengthen regional partnerships on the shared goal.

Developing the CAP will occur in phases over the year, aiming to approve the plan by the end of 2024.

The CAP will direct county action toward meeting goals laid out in the 2019 Climate Emergency declaration: reduce 2020 greenhouse gas emissions levels by 90% by 2050, adapt infrastructure, land-use, regional and environmental resources for the impacts of climate change, and involve stakeholders of all socio-economic and racial backgrounds to provide best practices for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The county first authored a CAP in 2017, identifying buildings, transportation, and waste as the county’s primary greenhouse gas-emitting sectors. The CAP was meant to be updated in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the plans.

Dual-sport star Persson has AHS girls golf team back in state title contention

The seasons don’t exist for Lenna Persson. The only thing that changes is how she goes about training, as the golfer and moguls skier doesn’t seem to understand the concept of taking it easy.
See more

PHOTOS: Aspen Mountain closes out the ski season with Sundeck party

DJ Naka G and DJ Dylan lit up the Sundeck stage on Sunday, leading the annual closing day celebration atop Aspen Mountain.

See more