Scorecard: Leading U.S. Cities Grow Clean Energy Efforts but Many More Lag Far Behind

Leading U.S. cities are expanding their clean energy efforts to tackle climate change, yet many more lag far behind, and only one-fifth have community-wide greenhouse gas reductions goals and are on track to meet them, according to the 2020 City Clean Energy Scorecard released Tuesday. New York City leaped to first place in the ranking—spurred in part by a new law ensuring upgrades to many inefficient buildings—followed by Boston and Seattle (tied for second place) and Minneapolis and San Francisco (tied for fourth place).

The scorecard from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) analyzes the efforts of 100 major U.S. cities—home to 19% of the nation’s population—to make buildings and transportation more energy efficient and scale up the use of renewable energy. It provides the most comprehensive national measuring stick for climate progress and a roadmap for future improvements. Over time, the Scorecard has adopted metrics to assess community involvement and equity as part of cities’ clean energy efforts.

The report, expanded from 75 cities last year, finds that 20 cities are now on track to meet their own community-wide greenhouse gas emission reduction goals—9 more than a year ago. Yet the remainder of the cities are not on track, haven’t provided adequate data, or have not set a goal.