To Get to Net Zero, This City Is Making a Map

In 2019, lawmakers in Ithaca, New York, resolved to eliminate or offset all carbon emissions ​​by 2030, becoming the first city in the US to set such an ambitious global-warming benchmark.

Then it launched a $100 million plan to fund a massive municipal climate-proofing effort.

That left this college town of 30,000 in the state’s Finger Lakes region with a big practical challenge: How do you decarbonize thousands of buildings — which account for a huge chunk of emissions — at scale, in just a few years?