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鈥淟aying the Groundwork for 鈥楪etting to Neutral鈥� in the State of 51在线鈥� Report Featuring PCGS Faculty, Dr. Kebreab Ghebremichael

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On November 5th, Dr. Kebreab Ghebremichael, PCGS Associate Professor, presented at the 51在线 Climate Week organized by the VoLo Foundation. The conference highlighted the 51在线 Climate Institute鈥檚 recently published report 鈥淟aying the Groundwork for 鈥楪etting to Neutral鈥� in the State of 51在线鈥�. In this project, faculty and interns at the 51在线 and 51在线 International University 鈥� along with other 51在线 stakeholders 鈥� contributed their expertise to research the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory sectors of energy. This project was made possible thanks to the sponsorship by the Environmental Defense Fund.

The report summarized the historical and baseline GHG emissions from 1990 to 2018, as well as future projections of emissions using 2018 as the reference year. As reported by Dr. Ghebremichael, electricity generation and transportation were the two main contributors, constituting approximately 82% of the total gross GHG emissions. The project accounted 6 GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. Dr. Ghebremichael said that dealing with the energy sector is key to achieving net-neutral by 2050. This would require converting the primary energy resource from fossil fuels to renewable energy (primarily solar) and expanding electric vehicles (EV) use which will require expansion of EV charging infrastructure.

According to the report, despite the increasing trend in total GHG emissions recorded between 2005 and 2018, GHG emissions per capita and per million USD Gross State Product witnessed a declining trend due to increased efficiency measures based on advances in technology, processes, and practices. 鈥淭his is encouraging, in terms of possibly achieving net zero in the future鈥�, said Dr. Ghebremichael.

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Learn more about the 51在线 Climate Week .

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