TITLE: Title
UNC Capstone Report on Community Greenhouse Gas Emissions
PURPOSE: The purpose of this agenda item is for a UNC Capstone Team to present a report updating Carrboro's community inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.
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DEPARTMENT: Planning
CONTACT INFORMATION: Randy Dodd, 919 918-7326
INFORMATION: Capstone Projects at the UNC Institute for the Environment bring together education, research and outreach/service missions of the Institute. They are conducted by teams of undergraduate environmental students in their junior or senior years. The projects are a learning experience for students, a chance for them to conduct team-based research typical of professional practice and the Institute's way of using the expertise of Carolina to help find solutions to the issues facing communities. In 2011, a Capstone Team completed a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory for Carrboro. Though a similar inventory was previously created for all of Orange County, the 2011 inventory was the first inventory to thoroughly disaggregate the Town's emissions to satisfy the requirements for "Milestone 1" for the Town's participation in the Cities for Climate Protection protocol. In 2014, Town staff asked UNC to consider a second Capstone project to update the inventory and provide support with populating the new ICLEI GHG inventory and forecasting software "Clear Path". The focus of the inventory includes all emission sources for Carrboro in contrast to the inventory that the Town has been pursuing annually since 2012 focused on the Town's operations. As a footnote, the 2009 inventory included emissions estimates from OWASA. The Capstone Team was not able to include OWASA emissions estimates for the 2012 update, and have removed the 2009 OWASA emissions estimates for the purposes of comparisons made between the two time frames. (Town staff will work with OWASA staff to obtain the 2012 estimates.) The Team has prepared a draft report and will present their findings....
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