Greenprint: A Climate Change Action Plan for Montgomery County, PA identifies over 100 actions for Montgomery County's government and community to implement in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The county became involved in developing a climate change plan through by completing an inventory of GHG sources in the county, which was prepared as a graduate thesis by a Penn State University student. Once the Montgomery County Commissioners were presented with the inventory and its implications, they became interested in determining what could be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions not only within County government facilites and operations but also countywide within the larger community.

The Commissioners formed a task force in January 2007 to create a greenhouse gas reduction strategy, which culminated in the creation of Greenprint. The task force was made up of representatives from the business community, clean air advocates, government, transportation, and academic institutions. Using the GHG inventory of the County, the task force developed practical actions for the county government and community to implement that would reduce manmade greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Though greenhouse gas reduction is a global issue, the county is committed to doing its part.

Reducing greenhouse gases dovetails with other county programs and initiatives including open space preservation, support of public transit, and revitalization of our older towns. Thus, enabling the county to achieve other land use and energy reduction benefits at the same time as greenhouse gases are reduced. Additionally, because cost savings from various greenhouse gas reduction actions, like energy efficient lighting upgrades, may be used to fund additional initiatives, the recommendations in Greenprint are economically feasible and practical.

Because a large-scale effort will be necessary to engage the county community in this effort, the county has partnered with the agencies represented on the task force for both the planning process and in the implementation of Greenprint's proposed actions. Using the county government as a model for implementing the various GHG reducing actions, the county hopes to motivate its residents, schools, institutions and businesses to similar actions. As a part of this ongoing effort, the County hopes to create a user based online green community that can serve as a clearinghouse of information as well as an education platform to share successful County government programs and showcase other local "success stories."

The scientific community has now provided broad evidence that global climate change is a reality, and that increasing levels of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are responsible for most of the observed impacts of climate change. Avoiding the most serious impacts of climate change, including but not limited to decreased agricultural production, new threats to public health, increases in the number and unpredictability of natural hazards due to extreme weather conditions, and destruction of local habitat and natural conditions, - requires urgent action to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Recognizing these potential impacts, the Montgomery County Commissioners formed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Task Force to create a plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The task force's deliberations were guided by the following principles: the process must be public and transparent, the recommendations must be feasible, achievable, realistic and calibrated to the County's existing legal authority and the actions should be focused inward towards County businesses, residents, workers and commuters.

Greenprint: A Climate Change Action Plan for Montgomery County, PA, the task force's product, is the first greenhouse gas plan in the Southeast PA region. There are over 100 actions presented in the report focusing on energy use, transportation and land use, and agriculture, forestry and waste management. Below is a summary of the actions that will have the greatest effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The largest amount of greenhouse gas produced in the County (over 65%) results from building energy use due to power or electric generation process. In addition to reducing overall energy use, different sources of energy can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The first recommendation is to prepare a greenhouse gas inventory to create a baseline of data. Other recommendations include:

1. Reduce energy consumption in existing and newly constructed buildings,
2. Purchase energy efficient products such as Energy Star rated,
3. Use renewable energy for fuel and for electricity,
4. Adopt a green building zoning ordinance,
5. Fund demonstration projects

Emissions from transportation activities account for approximately 25% of the total emissions in the county. Land use is inextricably linked to transportation due to an auto-dependent land development pattern. Recommendations for this sector generally try to increase fuel efficiency through alternative fuel types and reduce vehicle miles traveled through the following:

1. Use biofuels,
2. Increase the number of hybrid vehicles,
3. Increase telecommuting, carpooling, carsharing, transit, walking and biking
4. Expand SEPTA service,
5. Create more mixed-use, transit-friendly and higher density developments

Although the remaining activities account for the smallest percentage of countywide emissions, several of the recommendations will result in carbon sequestration or storage, including the following:

1. Plant and preserve trees,
2. Preserve farmland and open space,
3. Install green roofs,
4. Increase consumption of locally grown foods,
5. Increase no-till farming,
6. Increase recycling and reduce packaging,
7. Target sewage facilities for emission reduction actions

However, the County cannot mitigate the effects of climate change on its own, rather it will be the cumulative actions of individuals, businesses and other governments partnering together that will result in reducing our carbon footprint.

A comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions inventory for Montgomery County was prepared in 2005. The inventory showed that the County's anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions increased almost every year from 1990- 2004. Total emissions grew from about 9.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCDE) in 1990 to 13.2 MMTCDE in 2004. This represents a 36% increase, more than twice the rate that population grew and more than 3 times the employment growth rate for this same time period. The fact that greenhouse gas emissions were increasing at a faster growth rate than either population and employment identifies the critical need for per capita carbon footprint reductions. Despite the need for lifestyle changes at the individual level, change can only occur with collective action.

The task force embraced the idea of a range of reduction targets and chose the following reduction targets to address short range and long range planning concerns:

1. By 2012, reduce 2004 greenhouse gas levels by 4%
2. By 2017, reduce 2004 greenhouse gas levels an additional 15%
3. By 2025, reduce 2004 greenhouse gas levels an additional 32%

These years were chosen to provide both short and mid term (i.e. 5 and 10 year) targets, by which to measure progress and also to align with the County's adopted Comprehensive Plan (2025). The reduction targets were established based upon the recommended actions and to create a trendline that would, by 2050, reduce 1990 emission levels by 80%. This reduction target has been embraced by the scientific community as the target that needs to be achieved in order to significantly slow global warming.

In order to determine if Greenprint's actions were sufficient to put the County on track to meet its reduction targets, a detailed analysis of the potential reductions from the quantifiable actions was conducted.

To start, additional data collection and analysis was done to determine how Montgomery County's government facilities and operations emissions compared to countywide emissions. The results demonstrated that the County government's generation of greenhouse gases is very small compared to the emissions of the entire county. For example, the operations of the Montgomery County government consume less than four tenths of 1%, or 29 million kwh of a total 8 billion kwh, of the electricity consumed across the county as a whole.

Recognizing that the County government can only directly effect its small portion of countywide greenhouse gas emissions, the task force then worked to quantify the greenhouse reductions that would be achievable through the implementation of the actions laid out in the Greenprint plan. A technical team, made up of a subset of task force members with particular expertise in the reduction calculation methodologies, was compiled to guide and oversee the calculation of the greenhouse gas reductions that could be expected from the implementation of forty of the task force's recommendations. It was determined that if the recommendations in Greenprint were implemented Montgomery County could accomplish over 8 million MTCDE reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, enough to put Montgomery County on track to achieve its reduction targets.

As the above diversity of long term, medium term and short term reduction targets demonstrate, climate change plans and reduction strategies, because of the very significant lifestyle changes required to stabilize GHG levels in the atmosphere, far longer term planning is required than has been used in the past.