BOULDER — It’s time for an in-your-face approach to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, the Boulder City Council decided Thursday night.
The council unanimously approved increasing the city’s voter-approved carbon tax from its minimum to its maximum level beginning Aug. 6, providing an additional $810,000 annually toward meeting the city’s carbon-cutting goals.
The tax, built into utility bills, is expected to help the city reach 95 percent of the Kyoto Protocol — which calls for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels — before the tax ends in 2013.
David Driskell, Boulder’s deputy director for community planning, said the city must reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions by 400,000 metric tons by 2012 to meet its short-term goals. Estimates show the city is on track to fall just short of that, at 396,800 tons.
The council will have to give the tax final approval next month.
The city expects to use the new tax money, in part, to pilot a program being called “two techs and a truck,” in which a trained staff of clipboard-toting technicians would go door-to-door offering quick consultations.
The meetings could lead to checking insulation in the attic, using a “kill-a-watt” meter to show residents how much electricity their appliances are using, replacing light bulbs and installing programmable thermostats.
Technicians, in theory, also would be able to offer no-money-down, on-the-spot financing to help homeowners make immediate energy improvements.
Kara Mertz, an environmental-affairs manager for the city, said the program is designed to “blanket the community, neighborhood by neighborhood, to create a community buzz” about going green.
She said the “two techs and a truck” initiative also would create up to 1,200 jobs.
According to city estimates, the tax at its maximum rate would cost most residential energy customers $21 a year beginning next year — up from the current rate of about $11. Commercial costs would increase from the current average of $43 a year to $94.
Read more about this story, including what Boulder residents said about the measure at Thursday night’s meeting at .
