Global Climate Change
How Do We Evaluate Global Climate Change For a Project?
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Only a few agencies currently have published specific guidelines addressing the impacts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on global climate change in environmental documents prepared under CEQA and NEPA. In the absence of published guidelines, ALG works with lead agencies and legal counsel to identify appropriate procedures for addressing global climate change for specific projects, based on published guidelines in other jurisdictions, consistency with adopted plans to reduce GHGs, comparison of future GHGs to "business as usual" emission trends, and other available credible evidence.
What Emission Sources are considered when evaluating GHG changes?
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Identifying stationary, mobile, and area-wide sources of GHGs;
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Calculating GHG emissions using available credible evidence from agency approved and generally accepted GHG emission calculation techniques and methods;
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Incorporating indirect sources of GHGs resulting from use of electricity, water, wastewater, and other utilities;
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Accounting for the varying global warming potentials for different GHG constituent gases;
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Comparing project operations to "business as usual" emission trends;
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Documenting all calculations, sources, references, and assumptions so that the analysis is transparent and defensible