Pittsburgh can potential reduce carbon emissions by nearly 75 percent by 2030, according to a Siemens City Performance Tool report, exceeding its current goal of 50 percent.
The reduction would create 110,000 full-time positions through the implementations of these new energy changes.
The report links climate, innovation, and jobs. Siemens uses a data-driven software platform to calculate the environmental and economic impacts of infrastructure technologies. The company helps cities reach their goals by using a virtual-planning tool.
“We’ve been learning and applying these lessons along the way, but the City Performance Tool shows that we can create jobs, clean our air and reduce carbon emissions,” Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto said. “By investing in local renewable energy, district heating systems, accelerating energy efficiency efforts in our buildings and investing in smart technologies, we can really connect the economic and social benefits of climate action. In fact, the same lessons in Pittsburgh’s City Performance Tool can be replicated across the region and create a Marshall Plan for the Midwest.”
The Siemens tool identified electric buses and car-sharing initiatives, district heating systems using best available technologies, solar electricity generation, and nonresidential building automation systems as the best technologies to reduce carbon reductions, improve air quality and create more jobs in the city.