Climate Action Pursuit 2021

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In 2019 the transportation sector overtook power production as the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Signatories of the Climate Leadership Commitments have been required to track and draw down their commuting emissions but it continues to be a challenging output to track accurately and even more difficult to reduce. Despite these challenges, campuses continue to explore ways to track these emissions and offer access to alternative transportation options, and this session will highlight those efforts and opportunities.

Some key takeaways from this session:

• Pandemic has highlighted a lot of positives in relation to commuting - less traffic, congestion, opportunity to update buildings and space utilization. Shouldn’t go back to BAU, try to balance the positives of telecommuting with in person operations
• Pandemic has also highlighted the issues of equity and privilege. Telecommuting is a privilege. Essential workers still need to go to work. Urban public transit has survived, smaller metro areas public transit has suffered and been cut
• Lots of opportunities linked to commuting - such as the expanding of broadband to rural areas to support telecommuting. Expensive to fund public transportation, this could offset that need.