Baton Rouge ranks last among the nation’s 100 major cities and metropolitan areas for efforts to promote clean energy and mitigate climate change, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
The scores are based on performance in five categories: community-wide initiatives, building and transportation policies, energy and water utilities, and local government operations.
Baton Rouge scored a 3.5 on a scale of 1 to 100. Only 14 cities earned a score of 50 or higher, while the bottom 14 cities each scored below 10. More than 50 municipalities scored 30 or less.
Stefen Samarripas, local policy manager at ACEEE and lead author of the report, highlighted transportation, the largest single source of emissions, as a concern.
“Most cities haven’t set a goal for reducing vehicle travel or transportation emissions, and of those that have, only a few show progress,” he says.
San Francisco ranked No. 1 followed by Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis. You can read Governing magazine’s report on the scorecard here.
