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Boston updates carbon-neutral plan with new building codes, incentives

Pursuant to Boston's updated Climate Action Plan, Massachusetts' capital city will be investing in energy-saving improvements for city-owned buildings and crafting new guidelines for new building projects. The moves, announced Oct. 8 by Mayor Martin Walsh, D, seek to accelerate Boston's carbon reduction goals and put the city on track to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement by achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

"Climate change is the defining challenge of our time," Walsh said in a news release. "As a coastal city, Boston is at the front lines of this global crisis, and we understand the urgency. While national action is at a standstill, cities like Boston are leading with plans, solutions, and results. The 2019 update to our Climate Action Plan is our roadmap to carbon neutrality."

The updated plan sets clean air priorities for the next five years. One priority requires deep cuts in the carbon dioxide emissions produced by the city's buildings, which account for approximately 70% of Boston's CO2 emissions. In addition, the city will launch a process to develop carbon emissions performance measures, which the mayor's office said could help cut citywide emissions by nearly 40% by 2050 compared to business-as-usual emissions levels. Boston's carbon emissions are down 21% from 2005 levels and are on track to meeting the 2020 goal of falling 25% from 2005 levels, the mayor's office said.

The plan calls for a number of additional immediate steps, including the development of new zoning requirements for new large construction projects and city-funded affordable housing. In addition, the city will continue to pursue priority transit programs, the deployment of zero-emissions electric vehicles, and transitioning the municipal fleet to zero- and low-emission vehicles. Finally, the plan includes recommendations to incentivize the decarbonization of Boston's energy supply and local communities.

Meanwhile, the City of Boston has been calling upon Massachusetts' Department of Public Utilities to approve its community choice aggregation plan to create a municipal-owned electricity supplier as an alternative to the default utility, Eversource Energy subsidiary NSTAR Electric Co. City officials want to implement the plan to help stabilize the electricity bills of Boston residents and combat predatory business practices by for-profit energy suppliers that promise savings but fail to deliver on them.

By pooling customer demand, municipal aggregators can seek to attract better pricing or negotiate alternative supply options such as renewable energy products. Under Massachusetts state law, the community aggregators can even procure greater percentages of renewables or clean energy resources than required by the state's renewable portfolio standard.