Features

Coalition Prods University To Reduce Emissions By Catriona Stuart Special to the Planet

Friday November 11, 2005

As Berkeley lobbies neighboring cities to join in its greenhouse gas reduction efforts, constituents at UC Berkeley are trying to get their school to follow suit. 

A coalition of faculty, staff and student groups at the university are now lobbying school officials to join the city by adopting their own set of greenhouse gas reduction standards, which they hope will be consistent with the Kyoto Protocol. They are also calling on UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau to create a campus-wide plan for reducing and offsetting the school’s environmental footprint. 

“If a city adopts the protocol they are taking steps towards sustainability,” said Daniel Kammen, a professor in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. “If a university does it they are making a strong statement about the environment.” 

Kammen and student representatives Brooke Owyang, Scott Zimmerman and Eli Yewdall sent a letter to Birgeneau last April urging him to formally endorse the protocol, an international treaty that requires countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent before 2010. 

A spokesperson from the university said that the chancellor has “made no decision on the matter,” but confirmed that he is scheduled to review the matter. Owyang said that she and four of the letter’s signatories are scheduled to meet with Birgeneau and university officials on Nov. 15. 

UC Berkeley’s main campus releases over 150,000 tons of greenhouse gas equivalents each year. That translates into roughly enough carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide to fill more than 11,500 Goodyear blimps, concluded a campus sustainability assessment released earlier this year. 

“The fact that they agreed to meet in the first place is the most telling part,” said Thomas Kelly, director of KyotoUSA, a grassroots non-profit organization that works with communities to promote adoption of the protocol. 

At the Alameda County Conference of Mayors on Wednesday, Bates, along with San Leandro Mayor Shelia Young and Hayward Mayor Roberta Cooper, introduced a proposal that would have all 14 cities within Alameda County work together to reduce their emissions. 

“I am exceptionally proud of the work Berkeley has done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Bates in a statement. “By setting up a regional greenhouse gas reduction effort, we can work together to make a far more significant dent in emissions and be an example of cooperation for other regions to follow.” 

In January, the Berkeley City Council formally endorsed the Kyoto Protocol, only to announce a few months later that it had reduced emissions from municipal operations by 14 percent since 2002—far exceeding the protocol’s requirements. 

Then in September, Berkeley became the fourth city to join the Chicago Climate Exchange. The nationwide association of over 100 public and private entities calls on its members to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by one percent each year. Members who do not meet the reduction goal can buy emissions credits from others through a stock market-like trading scheme. 

“If we want to be a model, we have to find ways to partner up,” said Cisco DeVries, the mayor’s chief of staff. “We’ve got to reduce emissions community-wide. That obviously includes the university and all the people that drive to and from it.” 

The Mayor and Chancellor Birgeneau have discussed how they can work collaboratively on the greenhouse gas problem, said De Vries. 

Taking its cue from Berkeley’s use of biodiesel in many of its municipal vehicles, Owyang is spearheading an effort to convert campus recycling vehicles to the vegetable-based fuel.  

The citywide switch from diesel to biodiesel and other alternative fuels is credited with reducing Berkeley’s city vehicle emissions by 47 percent. 

De Vries also praised the UC system’s Green Building policy. Passed in 2004, the policy set a goal of procuring 20 percent of the electricity used throughout the UC system from renewable sources by 2017.  

But the university still has a long way to go. As the campus grows, its consumption of both electricity and steam heat, the two biggest contributors to campus greenhouse emissions, are projected to increase drastically, according to the sustainability assessment. 

“They have the expertise, they have the brain power” to adopt and implement the Kyoto Protocol at UC Berkeley, said Kelly. “Now they need the impetus.”