Adirondack Climate Action Plan examines local carbon footprints

TUPPER LAKE — An action plan to address climate change will begin by looking at two major sources of carbon emissions in the Adirondack Park: cars and homes.

A final day of work sessions at the Wild Center charted a course for Adirondack Climate Action.

Conference Co-director Lake Placid Mayor Jamie Rogers said four break-out groups merged into a core team of 13 people who will write the final plan.

"We isolated what the two biggest energy users are in our area with opportunities for the most immediate action — aging housing structures and how we use transportation."

Together, those categories create nearly 60 percent of emissions in rural Adirondack towns.

A greenhouse-gas emissions inventory completed by a conference task force presented carbon footprints by county for areas in the Adirondack Park.

Residential carbon emissions were compiled based on numbers of housing units per county and calculated by consumption of fuel used.

In Essex County, household emissions reached a total 148,770 metric tons; in Franklin County, household emissions (in the Adirondack Park households) are 70,986 metric tons; and in Clinton County, 51,697 metric tons.

Transportation emissions make the largest impact.

Using vehicle miles-traveled data from the Department of Transportation, the formula showed Essex County with 330,469 metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions; Franklin County with 231,835 metric tons; and Clinton County with 440,314 metric tons.

Initiatives to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions would look at improved access to public transportation, ride sharing and trip reduction.

The emissions data are balanced by carbon "sequestration" and storage in Adirondack forest lands, both public and private.

In Clinton County there are a total 714,763 acres of Adirondack forest land; in Franklin County there are 1,085,624 acres; and in Essex County there are 1,225,614 acres.

An estimated 250 million metric tons of carbon are in storage parkwide.

The Climate Action Plan will use these numbers to set an overall target-reduction plan, offset by carbon storage capacity.

"The ultimate goal of understanding current levels of (greenhouse gas) emissions is to develop and apply emission-reduction techniques in order to lessen the carbon footprint," the completed inventory said.

Howard Fish, communication advisor to the conference, said they will build a central Web site at www.adkcap.org in the next few weeks.

"The Web site will become a repository for information about various state programs with blogs from specialists in different areas of expertise."

Formulating a Climate Action Plan in a cohesive and comprehensive manner will put the Adirondacks in better stead once federal funding becomes available, he said.

"There are going to be requirements that you have processes in place to make sure that (federal energy-efficiency) funds sent are effectively used."

With a formal plan, Adirondack communities will be in a much better position to apply.

"It is the one big challenge, how we are going to fund this," Rogers said.

Implementation may begin with three or four test communities and expand from there, he said.

"One of the first goals is to start a process that can grow and expand."

Conference Co-director Dr. Ross Whaley said the very next steps will result in a written document to present to area lawmakers.

Very few county legislators or town supervisors were at the climate conference.

"We are exploring ways to most effectively encourage local communities to buy on to this."

"We need to put our plan together and bring it right to the towns," Rogers said.

Ultimately, the Adirondack Climate Action Plan will align with a national policy to be decided before December 2009, when international treaties are discussed in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Adaptation strategies, especially for a largely tourist economy, are still nascent.

"Adaptation is a very hard question to answer," Rogers said, "because you don't know all of what you're going to face."

E-mail Kim Smith Dedam at: kdedam@pressrepublican.com