The second presidency of Donald Trump has come with many sudden transformations in policy as efforts are made to both limit the size of the federal government as well as eliminate efforts to move away from the use of fossil fuels.
On July 7, Charlottesville City Council heard an annual report on local efforts to achieve locally set goals.
“We’re working with the goals of achieving a 45 percent reduction in our community emissions by 2030 and we’re aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050,” said Kristel Riddervold, director of the Office of Sustainability.
However, Riddervold said those goals may not be enough to prevent a tipping point that will make weather patterns more volatile. There are other ways the landscape is shifting. She said when her team gave an annual report in 2024, there were unprecedented federal investments to shift to new fuel sources.
“This year we are reeling from threats and realities of our federal government stepping away from climate leadership, undermining commitments of clean energy transformation and a decarbonized economy,” Riddervold said.
The recently adopted federal budget reconciliation bill eliminates tax incentives for solar and wind projects.
“It ends investment in vulnerable communities disproportionately burdened by pollution and it establishes new and expanded support for our fossil fuels,” Riddervold said.
Another challenge is that projections of future demand are outpacing available supply. The Virginia Clean Economy Act requires energy providers to be fossil-free by 2045, but the administration of Governor Glenn Youngkin has undermined the goal by pulling Virginia out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. That withdrawal has been challenged in court because the Youngkin administration did so without getting permission from the General Assembly.
“We cannot pause our commitment to climate work as politics play out,” Riddervold said.
The annual report also contains the latest data on the city’s progress meeting its greenhouse gas reduction goals. The latest measurements are from 2023 as information collection lags slightly behind.
“In 2023, our community released about 276,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent,” said Emily Irvine, the city’s climate protection program manager. “That is about 2 percent more than in our 2022 inventory year, but still 40 percent less than our 2011 baseline year.”
Irvine said the increase is due in part to a return to pre-pandemic transportation levels. Other areas that are measured continue to decrease, such as emissions that can be traced back to heating and cooling buildings.
Charlottesville continues to work with Albemarle County and the University of Virginia on a climate adaptation program called Resilient Together. However, that program too has been curtailed with the rescission of a $460,000 federal grant.
“We have managed to continue to support cohort members with local funds, some from Albemarle County, some from our Climate Initiative Fund, but to a much lesser degree and for the planning only, not for those implementation projects,” Irvine said.
Irvine said the city will continue to do its part by investing in solar arrays on public buildings such as the Charlottesville Area Technical Education Center as well as one on the new fire station on the U.S. 250 bypass.
