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Student team recommends CURB workbook as Kingston’s municipal climate decision tool
Summary
A Bard/NYC Lab student team recommended CURB — an Excel-based municipal scenario tool — to the Kingston Climate Smart Commission, citing scenario modeling, co-benefit tagging and cost–benefit outputs, while warning about proxy data reliance and maintenance needs.
A student consulting team presented the Kingston Climate Smart Commission with a recommendation to use CURB (Climate Action for Urban Sustainability) as the city’s municipal decision-support tool for greenhouse-gas planning. The presenters said CURB models multi-sector scenarios, reports emissions projections and calculates net-present-value and cost–benefit comparisons for candidate actions, and ties those actions to social co-benefits such as local job creation and public-health improvements.
"CURB was the only one that made sense for us moving forward," the presenters said, while noting trade-offs: the workbook is Excel-based, can be large and difficult to trace, and depends on accurate baseline data to produce reliable local projections. Commissioners asked how CURB handles Kingston-specific inputs versus proxy datasets; the team said the workbook accepts municipal data but often requires proxy data (C40/energydata.info or North American averages) when local datasets are missing. The presenters flagged alternative platforms (ClearPath 2.0) as more user-friendly and public-facing but subject to population-based subscription fees.
The commission did not take a formal vote on adopting CURB at the meeting; staff were asked to review the deliverables and recommend next steps, including whether to pilot CURB with Kingston inputs or pursue funding for a paid public dashboard. "Our first step is to really understand what you did first, and digest that," the chair said about staff review and follow-up.
