The Municipal Emissions Reductions Playbook

A Planner’s Toolkit for Reaching Zero Emissions

The Municipal Emissions Reduction Playbook (MERP) is an interactive dashboard that will make addressing climate change in an uncertain future as easy as possible for local governments. The MERP is designed to aid in this by helping you locate the CPRG strategies for emissions reductions that are most effective at stopping the production of greenhouse gases.

The PCAP and CCAP are a collection of strategies that Impact 2050 developed as part of the EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant. While these strategies are each proven to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some are more effective than others, and different cities may or may not be already using them. As our research has found, some strategies can’t be executed at the municipal level. We developed the MERP to help navigate our strategies in the context of an individual city’s climate planning, enabling them to make high-impact plans for reducing emissions.

MERPs will help you…

Identify the the best strategies for your community

MERPs provide local governments the ability to assess current planning around GHG emissions and decide which policies to implement (or to pause) depending on their level of overall impact on GHG reduction. They do so by answering the following:

  • Which sectors contribute the most to regional GHG emissions?
  • Which strategies will provide the greatest benefits?
  • How do local conditions determine relevant strategies?

Recommended strategies will be limited to those that local governments have the authority to implement according to our Authority to Implement.

Plan for an uncertain future

Evolving local, regional, and global forces bring new opportunities and challenges. Each MERP has functions to let you update it over time and meaningfully engage with your community members and stakeholders.

Find next steps to implementation

A strategy needs clear and actionable next steps in order to make it happen. Each strategy in the MERP will contain a direct link to its entry in the Authority to Implement that explains methods for making it happen.

Sample MERP

Municipal Emissions Reductions Playbooks for all 27 towns in the New Haven MSA are coming soon. Until they arrive, we are providing a sample MERP to demonstrate its use.

A video tutorial about the MERP is currently in development and will be added soon.