Charlottesville Emissions Reports

In accordance to the City's commitment to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and to track progress towards our community climate goals, Charlottesville conducts an annual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory.

Emissions inventories measure and track community-wide greenhouse gas emissions associated with activities within the City of Charlottesville’s jurisdictional boundary. Inventories are compiled according to established reporting protocol standards. GHG Emission Inventories are identified by the calendar year in which activity occurred. The time it takes for data from that year to become available often means that there is a ~2 year delay before an inventory dataset can be fully compiled.

The Climate Program published the inventory for calendar year 2023 in July 2025 along with the second annual Climate Action Update report. The 2023 inventory showed a slight increase in community-wide emissions, which were up about 2% from the 2022 inventory. This was driven by a nearly 20% increase in emissions from the transportation sector. Emissions from every other sector were either flat or reduced. Emissions specific to municipal operations are down 41% since our 2011 baseline. Check out the graphs and charts below for more information and our 2025 Climate Action Update for a more detailed analysis of the 2023 GHG Inventory.

History and Background

Charlottesville's first GHG emissions inventory was completed in 2008 for inventory years 2000 and 2006, and then again in 2012 for inventory years 2009 and 2011. Data has been collected annually starting with inventory year 2016.

Inventory years 2000, 2006, 2009, and 2011 were calculated according to the US Reporting Protocols. Beginning with the 2016 inventory, per the City’s Global Covenant of Mayors commitment, data began to be calculated according to the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventories (GPC). Opportunities to improve data collection methods are incorporated as they arise and are applied retrospectively when appropriate.

In 2019, Charlottesville adopted GHG emission reductions goals for target years 2030 and 2050. These goals were aligned with the most recent IPCC recommendations and measure reductions in comparison to baseline year 2011.

Charlottesville annually submits reports to CDP - the reporting platform used by the Global Covenant of Mayors Commitment - including GHG emissions inventory data. Submissions are available on the CDP Open Data Portal.

The City began collecting GHG emission inventory data annually in 2018, beginning with inventory year 2016. Following from the City's adopted GHG reduction targets, this data is measured against the 2011 GHG inventory data.

Some key takeaways:

The proportional contribution of GHG emissions across sectors in Charlottesville remains the same year-over-year. Approximately 90% of emissions come from energy used to power our buildings and from transportation. These emissions are split nearly equally across the residential, commercial, and transportation sectors.
Charlottesville's overall GHG emissions continue to decrease, with decreases being seen in almost every sector annually.
In 2016, Charlottesville had achieved 23% emissions reductions, about half of its 45% by 2030 goal. In 2019, Charlottesville reached 30% emissions reduction - 2/3 of the way towards its 2030 goal.
In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, emissions fell significantly to 45% below the 2011 baseline, which is the City's 2030 goal. This data is seen as an outlier due to stay-at-home orders and other pandemic impacts on our community's regular activity.
In 2021, emissions rose ~5% from 2020's low.
In 2022, emissions have begun to drop again and are down 42% from the 2011 baseline year. The preceding two years were impacted by pandemic-related closures and showed substantial reductions relative to pre-pandemic inventories. Although municipal and community activities had largely returned to normal by 2022, there was a sustained drop in GHG emissions, with lower emissions in 2022 compared to 2021.

Charlottesville GHG Emissions Inventory Data:

Municipal GHG Emissions Inventory Data:

The data below represents the GHG emissions from Charlottesville's Municipal operations, which includes Charlottesville local government and Charlottesville City Schools.

Please note: There is a partial overlap between the data sets below and the (community wide) Charlottesville GHG Emissions Inventory data listed above. Municipal data for Buildings & Facilities as well as for Street Lights & Traffic Signals are included in the community inventory as part of the Commercial Sector. Municipal Vehicle Fleet data is calculated based on total fuel consumption, which is used both within the City boundaries and in other jurisdictions. The community inventory's Transportation Sector is calculated by vehicle counts within the City, which would include City fleet vehicles. We are unable to determine how much of the City's fleet fuel is used within the City. We are also unable to determine how many of the community vehicle counts represent City fleet vehicles. As such, we recognize that there is an overlap between the community Transportation Sector emissions and the City Fleet Fuel emissions, but we are unable to identify how much overlap there is.