LA Sanitation's report shows municipal emissions down 44% since 2008; committee warned city likely to miss 2025 community target

Los Angeles City Council Member Adrienne Nazarian, chair of the Energy & Environment Committee, heard presentations from LA Sanitation on May 19, 2026 on the city's annual municipal and community greenhouse-gas (GHG) inventories and voted to note and file the report.

The inventories use two complementary accounting approaches: the Local Government Operations Protocol (LGOP), which LA Sanitation said it follows for official municipal reporting, and a second methodology that includes purchased power from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) for broader context. Lily Carlson, environmental specialist with LA Sanitation, said the municipal inventory shows "around a 44% reduction since 2008," but that power generation remains the dominant source of municipal emissions.

Daniel Rem, an environmental specialist at LA Sanitation, said the community inventory (reported under the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories, or GPC) shows roughly a 31% reduction for calendar-year 2024 and that, with current data, "it's reasonable to conclude that we're not going to meet the 2025 goals." Rem told the committee that the transportation-sector estimate for 2024 is less certain because Google Environmental Insights data were not available; LA Sanitation has sought clarification from Google and is exploring alternatives with LA DOT and regional partners such as SCAG.

Why it matters: the municipal inventory isolates emissions the city controls directly and is used for benchmarking government actions; the community inventory captures activity inside the city boundary and is the measure tied to the citywide 2025 reduction target. Council members said the community results underscore the need to focus on transportation-sector reductions as a priority lever.

Committee discussion focused on methodological differences and data quality. Carlson and Rem explained that LGOP reporting excludes LADWP purchased-power generation from the municipal total as a matter of protocol but that LA Sanitation reports purchased-power emissions separately and also produces a complementary total that includes those emissions so the council can assess overall progress. Carlson noted that scope-2 accounting will reflect further reductions if the city moves toward lower-carbon electricity.

A council member asked whether the inventories identify communities with the highest pollution burdens. LA Sanitation answered that these GHG inventories do not measure criteria air pollutants (PM2.5, ozone) and therefore do not serve as a spatial pollution-burden mapping tool.

The committee moved and seconded to note and file the LA Sanitation inventories. The clerk recorded the item as noted and filed; recorded yes votes included Chair Nazarian and two other members (a recorded "yes" from the speaker who answered as "Yes" during roll calls and Padilla); one member (Grama) was recorded as absent. The committee did not adopt further action at the meeting.

The LA Sanitation slides and underlying data were offered for follow-up review and will be posted on the department's website.

(Report read and discussed at the Energy & Environment Committee meeting May 19, 2026; action: noted and filed.)