The Pittsburgh-TEX team had their first meeting on August 8, 2016. The newly formed team consists of Community Leads Ari Lattanzi (Resilience Analyst, City of Pittsburgh) and Sarah Yaeger (Student Conservation Association Green Cities Fellow), and Scientific Partners Dr. Inês Azevedo (Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellow University Department of Engineering and Public Policy), and Dr. Mike Blackhurst (Research Development Manager, University of Pittsburgh Center for Urban and Social Research). Their collaboration will enable the creation of a more robust carbon inventory for the City of Pittsburgh, which will inform its Climate Action Plan and climate mitigation decision-making.
This will involve the development of a data collection and analysis protocol for Pittsburgh that is replicable on an annual basis. The initial steps being taken by the team are to identify what data will be needed – and is available – to provide actionable information, and at what spatial and temporal scale. In August, Lattanzi, Yaeger and Blackhurst will meet with representatives of local utilities to discuss these needs and set up data sharing agreements. Meanwhile, the team will be meeting to discuss and explore major challenges encountered during previous greenhouse gas inventories and how they can trace assumptions, limit uncertainties, and refine the process going forward.
