Climate Change and Greenhouse Gases

person holding a sign that say protect our planet

What is Climate Change?

Climate change is any significant change in the measures of climate lasting for an extended period of time. In other words, climate change includes major changes in temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns, among others, that occur over several decades or longer.

There are a wide variety of factors that influence climate change. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, some of them include reflectivity of the sun’s energy, changes in the earth’s orbit and rotation, volcanic activity, and greenhouse gas emissions.

What Are Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions?

View the City of Lakewood's annual GHG reports.

Greenhouse gases (GHG) in our atmosphere absorb radiant energy from the sun causing the atmosphere to warm and making it suitable for life. Human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, add more greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane to the atmosphere. This enhances the greenhouse effect, trapping more heat and causing global temperatures to rise. 

 

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Image Description:

  1. Solar energy travels to the Earth at sunlight.
  2. Sunlight hits the Earth and is absorbed, heating the planet.
  3. GHGs in the atmosphere prevent some of the heat from escaping, warming the Earth over time. Continued use of fossil fuels increases the Greenhouse Effect to dangerous levels.

 

Beginning with the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s, human civilization has increasingly emitted CO2 and other GHGs into the atmosphere. Current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by 40% from historic levels, corresponding to rising global temperatures. Since 1880, the global annual average temperature has increased by 1.8°F, according to data from the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC). Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Consensus from the world's leading climate scientists estimate that temperatures will increase between 6.7 and 8.4°F by the end of the century. GHG emissions increase and changes to the climate carry the risks of severe and sometimes irreversible impacts to our natural and human systems. In Lakewood, drought, reduced snowpack, strained water supply, disaster recovery costs and other impacts are already influencing municipal operations and household economies.

Tracking GHG Emissions

Lakewood Community Sustainability, Climate, and Zero Waste division works to do our part in reducing GHG emissions and adapting to a changing climate system in order to ensure a resilient future. We measure communitywide emissions through GHG emission inventories. These help us understand where emissions come from and what might be drivingTracking-GHG-Emissions.png their growth is the first step toward reducing our contribution to global GHG emissions.

Lakewood annually reports its GHG emissions and efforts to reduce emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). In 2018, Lakewood joined 43 other cities around the world on the CDP Cities A List, for its leadership in environmental action. Check out our GHG inventories on the Sustainability Plans & Reports page to learn about Lakewood’s emissions.

The city's Sustainability Plan uses the GHG inventories as a baseline from which to measure future emission reductions. The strategies included in the plan aim to reduce the community’s overall GHG emissions and achieve its goals of reducing communitywide GHG emissions by 20% by 2025 and reducing GHG emissions by 50% by 2050.

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