On Thursday, September 13th, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environment announced that D.C. Mayor Bowser signed on to new zero-emissions goals at the Global Climate Action Summit last week in an effort to continue shrinking D.C.'s carbon footprint while expanding the city's economy.
The latest initiatives include committing to all buildings being carbon neutral by 2050, making large strides to decrease waste generation by 2030, and increasing community programming surrounding economic and health impacts of climate change. Community programming and equity is a large focus of the city’s sustainability efforts now, embedded in the Sustainable DC Plan, which was updated two weeks ago. D.C. also recently released its new climate action plan, called Clean Energy DC. Both initiatives pay tribute to D.C. being a Deadline 2020 city, meaning that the region is striving to develop a program within the next two years to make the metropolis carbon neutral by 2050.
For the full press release and to learn more about the capital city’s sustainability efforts, click here.