City to learn emissions levels
This fall, Kamloops will learn just how far it has moved in becoming a more environmentally friendly city.
The Community Energy and Emissions Inventory (CEEI) is part of a provincial effort to track and report on community-wide energy consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions every few years.
While city officials will be watching the results closely, the report won’t necessarily be a reflection of what’s taking place at city hall.
Jen Fretz, the city’s sustainability and environmental-services manager, said the CEEI is different from what the city is doing in that the report measures all energy consumption and greenhouse gases for the entire community.
For now, the city is just tracking its own numbers as a corporation while it works on a strategy to become carbon-neutral by 2012.
“We want to make sure our house is in order before we go out to the community and ask the community to get their house in order,” Fretz said.
The effort is part of signing on to the province’s Climate Action Charter.
From solid waste to fuel consumption in city vehicles, Fretz said carbon neutrality is a huge challenge because almost everything has some kind of emission.
“It’s so big and all encompassing,” she said. “It’s a complicated and challenging process.”
Fretz is confident the new CEEI, with statistics from 2010, will show the community has made strides in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gases.
The last report provided an interesting snapshot of how much energy and greenhouse gases the city uses and produces.
Of all greenhouse-gas sources in Kamloops, 61 per cent come from on-road transportation, 29 per cent from buildings and 10 per cent from solid waste.
Road travel for all vehicles in the city produced 653,282 tons of CO2 emissions, while using up 11.7-million gigajoules of energy.
There were 17,406 small passenger cars in the Tournament Capital consuming more than 23-million litres of fuel.
The average car drove 13,516 kilometres, generating 56,009 tons of CO2 emissions.
There were 9,800 large cars consuming 22.9-million litres of gas, while creating another 55,642 tons of CO2.
The most popular modes of transportation in the city are trucks, vans and SUVs.
There were more than 24,106 vehicles driving around Kamloops consuming 73.5-
million litres of fuel and creating 195,000 tons of CO2.
When it comes to the commute to work, 87 per cent of Kamloopsians were either drivers or passengers in a private vehicle.
Just four per cent used public transit as their main mode of transportation to work, while another five per cent used their feet.
About half the workforce in the city has a commute less than five kilometres, while just six per cent are more than 25 kilometres from work.
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