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When people think about responses to climate change they usually focus on changing our major energy sources from fossil fuels to renewables, and other ways to directly reduce greenhouse gases (GHG), like driving electric cars. What often goes unnoticed is how our communities’ layouts and functions affect their production of carbon dioxide.

Land use patterns generally, and the way the built environment affects the natural environment, can have very divergent impacts on GHG emissions. Planners have long recognized that our sprawling suburban patterns require far more driving and therefore far more GHG emissions per capita than more compact communities. The reason that the transportation sector in the U.S. contributes about 40 percent of all GHG emissions is directly related to the cumulative impacts of the way most of our communities are shaped. Unfortunately, the damage nationally has been done in this arena, and it has made our climate change problem far more significant than many other countries whose urbanization patterns have not been so driven by the automobile.

One of the many benefits of Oregon’s planning program and its efforts to control sprawl through urban growth boundaries and other planning tools has been that it’s much easier here to minimize our carbon footprint from transportation sources. But the state and local governments outside the Portland-metro area have been slow to adopt plans that are specifically aimed at aggressively reducing GHG emissions. The state has the authority to require communities to make the necessary land use adjustments, but has been unwilling to do so. The state land use and transportation agencies and the Legislature need to make this a priority requirement and allocate the necessary money to make it happen. Oregon’s ability to significantly reduce GHG emissions depends on making the needed land use changes.