Dubuque reviews 2022 greenhouse‑gas inventory and options for targets beyond 2030

DUBUQUE, Iowa — At a Feb. 17 special session of the Dubuque City Council, sustainability staff and outside consultants reviewed the city’s 2022 community greenhouse‑gas inventory, discussed methodologies and proposed options for extending climate targets beyond the city’s existing 2030 goal, including a science‑based trajectory that reaches net‑zero by 2050.

The discussion centered on where Dubuque’s emissions come from today and what would be required to meet deeper reductions. Rachel Meyer, senior associate at Lotus Engineering and Sustainability, said the city’s 2022 inventory shows total community emissions of about 744,112 metric tons of carbon‑dioxide equivalent and that Dubuque’s totals are down roughly 9% from 2018 and roughly 34% from the 2003 baseline. “The largest source of emissions is natural gas use in homes and buildings at 32%, followed by electricity at 31%, and then on‑road gasoline and diesel use at 29%,” Meyer said.

Meyer explained the inventory used the Global Protocol for Community‑Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories for methods and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s global‑warming‑potential values from the 2021 assessment. She said data sources included Alliant Energy and Interstate Power and Light for electricity, Google Environmental Insights Explorer for on‑road vehicle miles traveled and EPA landfill reports for landfill emissions. Meyer summarized scope definitions used in the inventory and noted that 2022 added several sources not previously included — propane and…