SYRACUSE — Municipal operations for the City of Syracuse reduced their greenhouse-gas emissions by 67 percent, while the overall Syracuse community posted an emissions reduction of 29 percent, both when compared to emissions back in 2010.

Those figures are “exceeding the targets by a wide margin,” the office of Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh announced on July 24.

The findings from the 2010 Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory (GHGI) provided information that the city needed to set emission-reduction targets of 40 percent for municipal operations and 7 percent for the community by 2020.

Walsh released the 2024 GHGI, described as “an important step toward the sequential development of a consolidated municipal and community Climate Action Plan.”

These efforts are a part of the city’s recently launched Sustainable Syracuse Initiative and its “commitment to develop a comprehensive and strategic list of actions for city government and the Syracuse community to implement around sustainability.”

“The Syracuse community should be proud of these results and the collective work that went into achieving these unprecedented measures,” Walsh contended in the announcement. “These reductions stem from years of private and public investments in climate resiliency. With this updated GHGI report, we can build on these findings with new and existing partners to make Syracuse a more sustainable and prosperous community for all.”

The 2024 GHGI report was funded in part by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Climate Smart Communities Program and completed by C&S Companies.

Several city departments, National Grid, and both community and government agencies collaborated to help collect the data, Walsh’s office noted.

Reduction factors

Walsh’s office cited the GHGI report as indicating the city’s reduced carbon footprint was the result of “major shifts in operations” coupled with many other “small but significant” actions to reduce energy and fuel consumption. Syracuse’s conversion to LED (light-emitting diode) streetlights and traffic signals. implementation of a refrigerant-management system. procurement of fuel-efficient vehicles. optimization of waste-collection routes. and the expansion of the urban-forestry program all “played a role” in municipal-emission reductions.

The findings also revealed the community-emission reductions can be attributed to National Grid sourcing its electricity from renewable-energy sources, the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles, the utilization of micro-mobility opportunities emerging within city-limits, and commercial and household investment in green technologies such as LED lightbulbs, heat pumps, and the installation of solar panels.

In addition to reducing GHG emissions, these efforts all contribute to lowering energy costs, the City of Syracuse said.

Next steps

The City of Syracuse’s next steps toward sustainability progress includes the creation of a data-informed climate-action plan to promote the pursuit of net-zero emissions and climate resiliency within city-limits. Four public meetings will be schedule this fall followed by a public-commenting period.

The City of Syracuse has been tracking greenhouse-gas emissions since 2002 as part of its ongoing efforts to “mitigate and prepare for the impacts of climate change,” per the announcement. The city took a second inventory in 2007 and another in 2010, which resulted in the development of Syracuse’s 2012 Sustainability Plan, an aspect of the Comprehensive Plan 2040.