Delta staff assisted in the effort to understand the sources of emission in the city and the opportunities for reduction, specifically in the residential and commercial building stock.
The goal of the Action Plan is to reduce citywide greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020, and 80% by 2050. That's no small feat considering that government, business, industry and residents emitted 36.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2005.
The Action Plan has identified thirty-three actions in five strategy areas that would assist in meeting the ambitious reductions goal ranging from increasing the efficiency of buildings to adapting to the predicted impacts from a shift in Chicago’s climate.
Delta's innovative work in greenhouse gas emissions markets seemed like a perfect match to look for ways to implement the actions that are proposed in the Action Plan. Through funding from the Legacy Fund, Delta is creating a mechanism to support some of these strategies by using carbon markets to create a revenue stream to pay for the creation and maintenance of activities that either reduce or sequester GHG emissions. Currently being developed under the name, the Chicago Offset Fund (COfund), the project objective is to identify projects consistent with the Action Plan that go beyond business-as-usual, can be verified and sold as offsets to individuals, institutions, and businesses interested in reducing their carbon footprint.
The COfund will encourage implementation of measures in the Action Plan through new funding provided by offset trades. The COfund will initially focus on eight project types that are consistent with the CCAP and for which offset protocols and verification procedures already exist or can be developed. Additional project types can be added at a later time. It is expected that the COfund will enable projects to be evaluated, developed and implemented quickly and easily. This will help drive change to reduce GHG emissions.
The eight project categories currently being developed are:
The intent of COfund is to create Chicago-based projects that reduce Chicago GHG emissions and that could be fungible as offset credits in as many of the different carbon trading systems as possible by creating protocols that meet their varying requirements. COfund will provide a way to register offset projects, develop a new revenue stream, and facilitate the increased implementation of GHG reduction projects. The movement of each of the trading systems will be closely monitored as they develop further to ensure that COfund projects meet new standards and be viewed as high-quality.
Delta is currently developing the pilot projects to launch the project and creating a COfund website where individuals, businesses and events can calculate their carbon footprint, learn about ways to reduce greenhouse gas emission, and purchase offset credits – similar to its existing website, at www.deltacarbon.org.
