Maryland Climate Leadership Academy Newsletter
Summer 2022 | Issue #2

Project Spotlight: A New Tool for Examining City and County Level CO2 Emissions

Earlier this summer, Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for Montgomery County, RMI, and Crosswalk Labs hosted a workshop in Wheaton, MD with regional stakeholders to get feedback on the beta version of a CO2 emissions data tool Crosswalk Labs is launching in fall 2022. The tool is designed to give municipal and state planners, as well as citizens and advocacy groups, easy access to high-quality and low-latency emissions data.

The beta version is searchable for over 6,400 US cities and displays CO2 emissions across multiple sectors for the year 2015 as well as weekly fluctuations in total CO2 emissions over the calendar year. Based on feedback from the MD workshop and Crosswalk’s goal to provide actionable data, the full release will be searchable by city, county, metro area, congressional district, tribal boundary and state, and will provide data spanning the years 2010-2021. Expanded data products tailored to your jurisdiction and local needs will also be available this fall.

A few of the unique features Crosswalk data offers include:

  • The use of a single methodology nationwide, allowing for clear comparisons between areas with similar climates, populations, land use, etc.;

  • Quarterly data updates will enable near-real time assessment of the impact new policy/planning implementations have on emissions;

  • Emissions data are checked against atmospheric measurements of CO2 and radioisotopic 14C for accuracy.

Crosswalk Labs continues to be interested in feedback and encourages you to explore their website crosswalk.io. How would you interact with Crosswalk data? What types of software files would ideally be available for download? What types of data comparisons and outputs would you like to see in a standard pdf report? If you have feedback or any questions please share with the Crosswalk Team at contact@crosswalk.io.