Despite Park City’s efforts to be carbon neutral in 3 years, the most recent report on the city’s municipal carbon footprint shows it’s headed in the opposite direction.
In 2016, the city council elevated energy to one of its four critical priorities and set a goal of net-zero carbon emissions for municipal operations by 2022. Last year, the council voted to advance its goal of having a carbon-free community to 2030.
A report that analyzed the city’s carbon output shows that the city’s emissions went up in 2018—a 12% increase from 2017. Park City Environmental Sustainability Project Manager Celia Peterson pointed to some causes of that.
“It was actually a colder year, so that means that we used a lot more heating fuels," Peterson said. "Our transportation emissions also went up a little bit because we shifted more buses from diesel to electric. That made it go up a little bit but not as much as we expected, actually.”
The emissions were measured from three scopes: first from fuels burned or controlled by the city, including the diesel used by city buses and the natural gas used to heat buildings. This went up 18% from the prior year.
Scope 2 emissions are from electricity use. Those increased by 2% from 2017. Scope 3 emissions, which included employee commutes and business travel, as well as emissions that come from importing water, jumped 27% in 2018.
Peterson believes the increase in Scope 3 is due in part to different response rates in the employee commute and travel survey rather than actual emissions—more people took the survey in 2018 versus 2017. But the more impactful factor is water distribution, especially as the City transitions its water treatment plant.
"We’re building a new water treatment plant—the Three Kings Water Treatment Plant—and then Spiro has been kind of tagging along, and then a lot of water treatment has been happening at Quinn’s," Peterson said. "But then pulling water from Jordanelle Special Services District—that's one thing that has made it jump a little bit."
As a critical priority, the city is spending more money and staff time on tackling its energy goals. But despite the report, Peterson says she’s not worried about meeting those milestones. Once the transit fleet shifts completely from diesel to electric—moving much of the Scope 1 emissions to Scope 2—the new community renewable energy law will take care of emissions from electricity.
"What I’m really focusing on is reducing our Scope One emissions. Scope Two is automatically going to zero because at the last legislative session HB 411 was passed, so that enables us to really pursue the 100% renewable electricity goal," Peterson said. "Our water department is actually doing some really interesting things, and later in May we’ll be doing a deep dive into what our water footprint looks like, and talking about the changes that are being made in our water distribution system, where we're going to capture some pretty major efficiencies."
Peterson also says the report doesn’t account for the city’s carbon sinks—the open spaces that suck carbon dioxide out of the air—which help pay the difference and get to the city’s net-zero carbon goal. Next month, sustainability staff will do three deep-dive work sessions on emissions related to water, transportation and buildings and facilities and how to mitigate their effects.
