Read the City of Philadelphia’s just-released report on its clean energy goals

The City of Philadelphia wants you to know it’s taking the ongoing destruction of Mother Earth seriously.

Three years ago, its Office of Sustainability released a report detailing how each municipal department could better plan for climate change. And on Wednesday, the office released a similar report, but focused on the entire city.

“Powering Our Future: A Clean Energy Vision for Philadelphia” is a roadmap for reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050 and includes both short- and long-term goals. The report also includes green best practices for people and organizations.

There are five focus areas of citywide energy-related work:

• Clean electricity supply
• Citywide solar
• Energy-efficient homes and businesses
• Low-carbon thermal energy
• Low-carbon economy

A draft of the report was released last November and open for public comment; this version incorporates collected citizen and expert feedback. A follow-up “Clean Energy Vision Action Plan” will be released in September.

“Climate change is real, and it’s already affecting Philadelphians,” said Mayor Jim Kenney in a statement. “Philadelphia will continue to identify and implement strategies to cut carbon pollution and protect our most vulnerable residents from the changing climate.”

P.S. Last week, former Office of Sustainability Deputy Director Sarah Wu reminded SustainPHL attendees that the best thing citizens can do to fight climate change is to vote — with their time, money and power, along with literal ballots.

Climate Hero winner: Sarah Wu #SustainPHL — “We are all climate heroes” if we can all work toward reducing climate change pic.twitter.com/KFykrDY5Io

— Generocity (@Generocity) August 17, 2018