Climate Policy

The Housing Blind Spot That Undermines Climate Strategy

Housing policies influence 53 percent of climate pollution from the average American household by determining whether people can choose to live near jobs and shops in smaller homes or are limited to driving everywhere from bigger, energy-hungry houses. Yet federal…

Did Someone Say … Housing Policy is (Still) Climate Policy?

Can infill housing reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help California achieve its climate goals?  In US urban land-use reform: a strategy for energy sufficiency, Terner Center associate research director Zack Subin and his coauthors argue that it can: by concentrating…

Housing Policy Is (Still) Climate Policy

An abundance of climate and urban planning research has shown that urban sprawl is responsible for a significant share of global climate pollution. Sprawl requires longer trips in private vehicles, measured in “vehicle miles traveled,” or VMT. It also increases…

700 Cities, One Warming Planet

What can city governments do to fight climate change? In an influential 2018 paper, renowned climate scientists Daniel Kammen, Chris Jones, and Stephen Wheeler analyzed the emissions reduction potential of 717 California cities and all 58 counties.  What they found:…