Conducting a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory at the Metropolitan Level, Allocated to Municipalities and Counties

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) developed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory to provide an accounting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the nine-county DVRPC region for 2005. This inventory was carried out in close consultation with the US EPA to assure the protocol used conforms where possible to the agency’s current thinking on MPOlevel inventories. DVRPC also consulted with both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey, as well as with ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability. The protocol used drew on the state inventories developed using the U.S. EPA’s State Inventory Tool, as well as local data where available. This work was carried out with the consulting support of ICF International. The inventory allocates emissions to the each of the nine counties and 352 municipalities in the region. This sub-regional allocation excludes several emissions categories which were not feasible to allocate with available data, including emissions from aircraft, through highway traffic, some industrial fuel use, and livestock. Nonetheless, 90 percent of all emissions for the region are allocated to the county level, and 84 percent to the municipal level. DVRPC will use this inventory in its work to develop policies and programs for the region to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. DVRPC will also use this inventory to support inventory efforts at the county and municipality level, as well as to support regional analysis of where investments in energy conservation and efficiency might be most productively made.