The Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes it undeniably clear that climate change is real, and it’s our fault. Scientists are now 95 percent certain that human influence has been the dominant cause of global warming since the mid-20th century, up from 90 percent certainty in the IPCC’s 2007 report.

The report’s summary for policymakers lists a range of “new normals” — increases in surface temperatures, concentrations of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere, rising sea levels, more extreme weather events — all of which depend on whether and how much countries reduce their GHG emissions.

The panel conclusively shows that warming since the 1950s — when suburban development and transportation policy became much more auto-centric — has been unprecedented. In the United States, the automobile’s greenhouse gas emissions is the second-largest contributor to global warming from the transportation sector, which as a whole accounts for 28 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. Car emissions are also the fastest growing source of U.S. GHG, with a 48 percent net increase in total emissions since 1990. And, transportation is the largest end-source of CO2 emissions, the most prevalent of greenhouse gases.

While some municipalities in the region are already taking the report’s results to heart, it’s undeniable that more needs to be done.

Bus rapid transit (BRT) – Bus rapid transit isn’t just good for local economies; it’s also good for the planet. Designated lanes, traffic signal prioritization and off-board fare collection helps reduce emissions by up to 40 percent compared to regular buses because there’s less time spent idling. Commuters in Connecticut are eagerly awaiting the state’s first BRT system, CTfastrak, with operations to begin by 2015. BRT studies are also underway in Suffolk County, New Jersey’s Union County and  Bayonne, as well as South Jersey’s link to Philadelphia—with service scheduled to begin by 2020. Still, potential corridors that could use BRT or enhanced bus service as a solution to their traffic problems are left in limbo, such as the I-287 corridor on the new Tappan Zee Bridge, and the notoriously lethargic M60 route in New York City.

Transit Oriented Development (TOD) – TOD plays an important role in reducing GHG emissions by replacing automobile trips with transit, walking and biking trips. As vehicle miles traveled decrease, so do harmful GHG emissions. A study by the Center for Transit Oriented Development on the Chicago Metropolitan Area found that an average household living near transit can reduce its transportation-related GHG emissions by 43 percent, and in the most location efficient transit zones, by as much as 78 percent. Examples in the tri-state region include New Jersey’s Transit Village Initiative, which provides assistance for municipalities to plan and build TOD; existing and planned TODs in Westchester, Long Island  and the Hudson Valley; and four large-scale TOD projects in the works in Connecticut. Still, more municipalities need to get on board with TOD, especially in Westchester, where adding parking to accommodate driving to transit stations has been more of a focus than building compact communities near transit.

Complete Streets- Complete streets provide safe rights-of-way for low-or-zero-emissions travel. Walking and biking for short trips rather than driving can reduce emissions by up to 12-22 million tons annually; and up to 9 to 23 million tons annually by replacing the car with walking and biking for longer trips. While complete streets policies have been adopted in communities throughout the region, there’s still more work to be done to implement safe streets projects in places like Stamford, the Jersey Shore, and Long Island.

Cleaner buses –According to the Environmental and Energy Institute, hybrid buses can reduce emissions by as much as 75 percent compared to conventional diesel buses. Hybrid buses tend to work best along highly dense corridors such as in Manhattan due to the intense stop-and-go nature of traffic flow. Some areas in the region such as Connecticut are working to reduce their fleet’s environmental impact by adding new hybrid buses to their systems.  However, in New York City, the MTA recently gave up on hybrids, announcing that they will converting buses that run in outer boroughs to 100 percent diesel engines. While the MTA plans on maintaining hybrid engines for routes in Manhattan, more effort should be made in keeping hybrid engines in buses that travel within congested areas in the outer boroughs, such as Flushing, Queens, home to one of the city’s busiest transit hubs, with 15 MTA bus lines.