A 2008 Brookings Institution survey of the carbon footprint of America’s top 100 metro areas discovered that, while cities are hot spots for global warming, the people living in them turn out to be 14 percent greener than their country cousins. Key factors behind their lower per capita carbon dioxide emissions include population density and greater use of mass transit.

Heavier carbon footprint metros are overwhelmingly east of the Mississippi and in America’s fast-suburbanizing Southeast. The lighter carbon profiles reside in the West.

Winners include: New York-Northern New Jersey, Portland, Seattle-Tacoma, San Francisco, Honolulu, San Diego and Los Angeles. Researchers note that hydropower is a common benefactor in the Pacific Northwest.

The biggest carbon generators were in the Midwest, notable for their reliance on coal for electricity and natural gas for heating, a shortage of mass transit, and often older, energy-inefficient buildings. Cities in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana rode the bottom tier, with Lexington, Kentucky, at the bottom.

State officials, mayors and county leaders are making a difference. But, “Metros can’t go it alone in solving [so] vast a problem,” remarks Mark Muro, policy director of The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. The federal government must play a far more constructive and supportive role.

Source: Brookings.edu