Climate Change

The City of Cambridge recognizes that global warming, or climate change, poses significant potential impacts. To this end, the City of Cambridge has made a commitment to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions.

In 1999, Cambridge joined the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP). This campaign, sponsored by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, helps committed cities to create a city-specific greenhouse gas emissions inventory and subsequently set targets and strategies to reduce these emissions through a comprehensive and well-defined plan.

Cambridge subsequently developed and approved a climate protection plan for the City. The plan proposes that Cambridge reduce global warming emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels.This means the community needs to reduce  and prevent annual global warming emissions of 494,400 tons of carbon dioxide. The 20 percent target is typical of those set by other CCP communities.