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UC Davis takes stock of its own air impact

School with a reputation for environmental study tallies its greenhouse emissions as part of a climate registry program.

By Edie Lau -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Tuesday, September 5, 2006

An answer to that question is coming.

As one of the newest members of the California Climate Action Registry, UC Davis is in the midst of calculating its own emissions of greenhouse gases.

Once an obscure exercise done mainly by organizations most interested in environmental stewardship, taking inventory of greenhouse gases is going mainstream.

With the Legislature's adoption last week of mandatory greenhouse gas limits backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California is poised to require big industries to account for their climate-changing emissions and then rachet them down.

The climate registry was created by state law in 2000 as a strictly voluntary program for businesses, governments and organizations wishing to measure their output of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.

Today, its members -- numbering 88 at last count -- stand as examples of how the state can begin to counter climate-changing pollution.

"Now (the registry) is the foundation for a statewide greenhouse gas program," said Dan Sperling, a professor of engineering and environmental policy and director of UC Davis's Institute for Transportation Studies. "Because you have to know what the emissions are and where they're coming from before you can do anything about it."

Sperling was one of about a half-dozen people who pushed UC Davis to join the registry. Although educational institutions do not come under the new global-warming mandates, Sperling and others thought the university had good reason to participate.

"We like to think of ourselves as the environmental campus, and many of us are very much involved in energy and climate change research," Sperling said. "We said, 'Well, this campus should step forward.' I don't know why it took us this long."

To date, only two other UC campuses are part of the registry: UC San Diego, a charter member; and UC Santa Barbara.

"I give them a lot of credit because they're willing to do this," said Joel Levin, the registry's vice president of business development. "Some of the campuses are very reluctant to turn the microscope on themselves."

This is despite avid support by the UC Office of the President for systemwide participation.

Maric Munn, associate director of energy and utilities for the UC system, said many of the campuses are growing, and officials are nervous that their global-warming emissions are rising as a result.

"They're afraid of criticism from the outside," Munn said. "That's been a huge impediment."

Moreover, the majority of buildings being built are laboratories, which Munn said use four to five times as much energy as classrooms and offices.

Kristine Haunschild, a UC Davis undergraduate engineering student hired to conduct her campus's inventory, isn't nervous about finding out how much her school emits -- and considering its reach, from a medical center in Sacramento to a marine lab in Bodega Bay to a mosquito research center in Bakersfield, she expects it to be huge.

"(Having) this big a footprint, we hope we can do something substantial (to reduce emissions)," she said.

In large part, taking inventory of greenhouse gas emissions is an exercise in accounting. Consumption of energy derived from fossil fuels is responsible for the bulk of carbon dioxide emissions, which are measured by the metric ton.

For Haunschild, who began the job this spring and expects to have a rough total on 2005 emissions in a few weeks, coming up with the numbers requires poring over utility bills and vehicle fuel records, among other data.

Some tasks are incomprehensibly arduous. For example, although most of the central campus's electricity consumption is reflected on one utility statement, a few departments, such as music, get individual bills.

"We haven't gotten to the bottom of that one yet," Haunschild said with a laugh.

Other tasks that would be challenging aren't required. Personal vehicles, for instance -- whether cars driven by staff, students or visitors -- need not be included in the inventory.

Under registry protocol, only pollution sources over which the member has financial or management control must be counted.

The campus also need not count emissions from its dairy herd -- at least not yet, despite cows' reputation for producing methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

One reason is that the registry hasn't figured out how to account accurately for livestock gases.

In addition, registry members aren't required to account for all their greenhouse gases right away, just carbon dioxide. Under the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to combat global warming, five other gases are considered contributors to climate change, as well: methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride.

Novel as it may seem to measure greenhouse-gas output, Victoria Evans, assistant director of the UC Davis Air Quality Research Center, said it's really no different from taking inventory of standard pollutants such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, as industries and governments have been doing for years.

Sperling, the engineering and environmental policy professor, said he expects greenhouse-gas inventories to become as commonplace as recycling.

"It used to be that no one did recycling," he said, "and now many organizations consider it standard behavior."

About the writer:

• The Bee's Edie Lau can be reached at (916) 321-1098 or elau@sacbee.com.

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