As the current administration rolls back environmental regulations–led by a president who believes global warming is a Chinese hoax–many American cities have stepped up their efforts to curb climate change on their own.
But a new report from the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network shows that cities have a significant way to go to reach target carbon emission levels. An evaluation of the 100 most populous U.S. cities across 16 sustainability goals, informed by the UN’s two-year-old globally accepted Sustainable Development Goals, shows that, collectively, cities are faring badly in their climate goals. The report recommends 1.8 tons of carbon emissions per capita to meet Paris climate agreement levels, but the worst U.S. cities are producing 22.2 tons per capita.
The dramatic progress cities need to make when it comes to climate change is highlighted in a simple dashboard that lists each of the 100 cities included in the report and grades them with green, yellow, orange, or red for each criteria, where green is good and red is poor. The criteria range from poverty level to economic growth and gender equality–all part of sustainable cities. The climate change category is the only one in which every single U.S. city is in the red.
Some cities do fare reasonably well across all of the report’s categories–particularly Californian cities. San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, and Ventura County are all in the top 10 for the index across the board. And despite having fewer resources and influence than federal and state governments to dictate policy, Prakash does believe that cities can impact climate change. “I personally think cities have a significant amount of authority to make positive change in combatting climate change agenda,” he says.
What might that look like? Planting trees, utilizing abandoned spaces, and designing resilient waterfronts is a start. But there’s still a long road ahead.