D.C. Area Outpaces Nations in Pollution

The Washington area produces more carbon dioxide than several medium-size European countries, according to a new estimate of local emissions, as the region's crawling traffic and coal-fired power plants give it a pollution "footprint" out of proportion to its size.

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The estimate, by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, seems to be the first official attempt to put a number on the region's contributions to climate change. And the number is big: 65.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide were emitted here in 2005. That was more than in all of Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Denmark or Switzerland, each of which has more people.

Within the region, the estimate shows that the Maryland suburbs -- often stereotyped as green-leaning and blue-voting -- produce more carbon dioxide than either the Virginia suburbs or the District. One major reason: It is home to three coal-burning power plants.

The region is in a period of changing light bulbs and policies as residents and governments rush to rein in the pollution blamed for climate change. The estimate shows how big the task really is. The region is polluting on a globally significant scale, it shows, and getting steadily worse.

"It's not a surprise that we compete with entire countries in Scandinavia," said Mike Tidwell, who heads the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group. "What this data does is point up just how huge America's contribution to climate change is . . . if our one capital region is emitting on par with other industrialized countries."

Generally, most anything with a smokestack or tailpipe -- anything burning some fossil fuel for energy -- emits carbon dioxide, which accounts for about 84 percent of all U.S. greenhouse-gas pollution. To calculate how much carbon dioxide the area emits, a sum called a carbon footprint, COG staff workers added up emissions from power plants, cars, airplane engines, home heaters and other sources.

Such pollution inventories have been done for states and some U.S. cities in recent years, but this effort seems to be one of the first to look at an entire metropolitan area.

One point of comparison was a study of the San Francisco Bay area. It produces more carbon dioxide than greater Washington, 69.7 million metric tons a year. But it also has more people, 6.8 million, so Washington produces more on a per capita basis.

Calculations were rough: For some emission sources, detailed local data were not available, so COG staff workers extrapolated numbers from state-level figures. They also did not include other pollutants, such as methane, that play a role in climate change.

"It's not a full-blown inventory" of carbon emissions, said Jeffrey King of COG. "It's estimates. We're trying to estimate greenhouse emissions for the region based on available data."

But, rudimentary as it is, the estimate makes one fact obvious: The Washington region may be only a pixel on the world map, but it is a significant player in its pollution.

"We're kind of like a country -- you know, a small country," said Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a nonprofit group. She saw that as a bad thing and a good thing, in that if Washington cleaned up, the world would notice. "We can take action that is globally significant," Greenwald said.