Snapshot

The Snapshot community climate tool is designed to help identify a municipality’s highest impact areas. This can provide focus and drive investigation into actions the municipality can take to reduce and raise awareness about CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions. CO2e is the universal unit of measurement to indicate the global warming potential (GWP) of each greenhouse gas (GHG), expressed in terms of the GWP of one unit of carbon dioxide. It is used to evaluate the climate impact of releasing (or avoiding releasing) different GHGs on a common basis.
Snapshot provides the municipality’s emissions profile for the inventory year and gives a breakdown of emissions by sector. Alongside the data, the report provides charts and a high-level written summary. Snapshot is generated from “top down” or state-level data on the volume of greenhouse gases emitted within a set boundaries and the different sources of these emissions. Snapshot can be used alongside local data sets where more detail is needed. The data is represented as the total emissions in CO2e by emissions source and sector.

This tool will help achieve the goal of the following objectives

Less Contamination
Less Emissions
Less Traffic Noise
Connectivity and Inclusion
Healthy Destinations
Less Traffic Violence
Active Transportation
Green Space

Estimation Technique

The estimation technique uses a number of emission factors to estimate the emissions released from various activities, including transportation activity. These emission factors are derived from studies that measure emissions from real world settings. The Snapshot tool provides a more accurate estimate of emissions than simply using the defaults from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines. However, it is important to note that the tool is only as accurate as the data that is input into it. If the user inputs inaccurate data, the results will also be inaccurate.