To the Editor:

The Boston City Council is currently evaluating methods of decreasing Boston greenhouse gas emissions to reach the citywide goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Members of the Boston Climate Action Network are pushing for an obvious solution to the issue of emissions. Under the Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO), the energy use of buildings over 35,000 square feet in size must be reported annually to the City of Boston, yet the actual corrective actions required of the owners of high-greenhouse gas buildings are incredibly limited. 

The deleterious effect of these emissions in warming our climate and creating wide-ranging impacts is no secret in Dorchester. In a recent article (June 24) by Miriam Wasser that you titled “As sea levels rise, city may find stormwater has nowhere to go” the argument is made that sea level rise and increased precipitation as caused by climate change will produce devastating and frequent flooding for Dorchester. Resident Maria Lyons describes that many of the low-lying areas of Dorchester already experience flooding regularly. The solution to these threatening scenarios is simple. We must eliminate the source of these issues: emissions. We must advocate and push for amendments to the Building Energy Reporting and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) that will set higher building emission performance standards, increase enforcement, and allocate enough resources to keep builders accountable. 

We demand that more corrective action be required by owners of high-greenhouse gas buildings and more resources allocated to pursue violators. Did you know that over half of total greenhouse gas emissions from Boston are produced by just 3 percent of its buildings? 

In my community of Brighton, I have seen the effects of wasteful and inefficient buildings through intense summer heat waves, flooding, and poorer air quality that inflames my asthma. If we push for these amendments and retrofit our most wasteful buildings, it would make for incredible amounts of progress to meet citywide goals while making Dorchester a more equitable and safe place for future generations to come. 

Respectfully,
Hailey Moll
Brighton