When it comes to anti-fossil fuel policies, few cities have pursued them with as much gusto as Boulder, Colorado. In 2006, Boulder became one of the first local governments in the nation to adopt emission reduction targets. Then in 2019, the city went into a full-blown panic over emissions, declared a “climate emergency,” and exponentially increased its targets.While progressive cities feel good setting targets to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, achieving those targets is another thing entirely. Just the News analyzed Boulder’s progress toward its goal of being at net-zero emissions by 2035. Based on its current rate of emissions reductions, the city would need to nearly double the pace that it is reducing emissions to meet that goal.
The town is going to find it much harder to achieve reductions going forward. Much of its progress so far has been from reducing emissions associated with electricity generation. The U.S. as a whole has seen a drop in emissions, largely due to a transition from coal to natural gas.
Yet, the grid still needs those coal plants. A new report by Xcel Energy, the utility that supplies Boulder’s electricity, warns that if it shuts down its coal plants as scheduled, there will likely be blackouts in Colorado.
More than that, even if Boulder — a city of only 25 square miles — were to reach net-zero by 2035, it would have no meaningful impact on global warming due to rising emissions everywhere else.
“Ridiculous” proposal, ambitious targets
The city of Boulder has long shown hostility to fossil fuels. It was one of the first local governments to file a lawsuit against oil companies claiming to be owed damages stemming from climate change. That lawsuit is now before the Supreme Court, which will consider if such cases belong in state courts at all.
In 2024, Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., challenged Boulder to demonstrate the potential to eliminate fossil fuels by becoming a fossil fuel-free demonstration city. Despite fervent plans to eliminate all use of fossil fuels in a very short timeframe, Boulder City Councilman Mark Wallach told Wyofile, a left-leaning nonprofit publication based in Wyoming, that Hageman’s proposal is “ridiculous.”
With its policies based on the belief that fossil fuels are creating a terrifying emergency, it’s not clear why Wallach considered such a proposal to be unreasonable, other than such a demonstration would create hardships that come with giving up the benefits of fossil fuel use. At the time, Just the News reached out to Wallach, who was reelected the following November, and he didn’t respond.
Whatever the case, the city remains committed to its climate goals. Boulder’s plan today is to have 100% emissions-free electricity by 2030, reach net-zero emissions by 2035, and then it plans to be carbon-negative — meaning it sinks more greenhouse gas emissions than it puts out — by 2040.
For comparison, San Francisco, California, plans to reach net-zero by 2040. Boston, Massachusetts, plans to reach net-zero by 2050, as do Phoenix, Arizona, and Miami, Florida. Boulder’s goals may be the most ambitious of any city.
Difficult but necessary
Despite the likely prospect of failure, Boulder stands by its pledges and says the targets aren’t unrealistic.
Layra Nicli, senior program manager in Boulder’s Communications and Engagement Department, told Just the News that the targets were never selected because they’d be easy. Rather, they were developed based on what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is necessary to avoid the “most severe climate impacts,” she said.
“Characterizing the targets as ‘unrealistic’ assumes they were designed to reflect what is easiest or most immediately achievable. In fact, they are intended to reflect what climate science indicates is necessary,” Nicli said.
The city of Boulder keeps a tally of the various sources of emission sources that it will need to eliminate to reach its 2035 target. This includes propane and natural gas people use to heat their homes. It also includes local air travel, and vehicles to cross Boulder’s city limits.
According to Boulder’s Community Greenhouse Gas Inventory, the city’s emissions have dropped 29% between 2018-2024. By 2030, it will need to create a drop 250% higher to reach its overall emissions reduction target of 70%, which includes 100% emissions-free electricity. Then, it will need to reduce another 30% emissions in five years to reach its net-zero goal.
Its pace of annual reductions between 2018-2024 was 4.8%. At that pace, it will only reduce a total of about 54% from the 2018 baseline by 2030. From 2020-2021, Boulder saw an increase, which is likely due to the pandemic. From 2021-2022, it reduced emissions by 6.9%. Then from 2022-2023, they fell 3.9%. Then from 2023-2024, the latest year available, they fell 7.9%.
From 2018-2024, emissions in Boulder fell from 1,584,573 metric tons to 1,117,543, a drop of 467,030 metric tons.
Coal retirements threaten blackouts
While most sources of emissions saw reductions, almost all of that total was emission reductions from electricity generation. In that time, emissions from electricity in Boulder fell from 800,482 metric tons to 420,995 metric tons, a drop of 379,487 from a total drop of 467,030.
Emissions from electricity still account for 44% of Boulder’s total emissions. All of that will need to be eliminated in just four years to achieve its 100% emissions-free electricity by 2030 goal. However, even making emissions reductions may be hard going forward. Last month, Xcel Energy released a report, known as the “Comanche Report,” which stated that the utility company will face a “capacity deficit” if it doesn’t keep its Colorado coal plants open.
Energy analysts with Always On Energy explain on their “Energy Badboys” Substack that a “capacity deficit” means the utility can’t meet its reliability requirements and blackouts are likely. Sarah Montalbano, who is on the Always On Energy team, explains on her Substack that Xcel was the first utility to pledge 100% carbon-free energy, and it set a target date of 2050.
Now, the utility is begging Colorado regulators to let it keep running its coal plants until 2030. Montalbano wrote that utilities earn no regulated rate of return on fuel expenses. Instead, they earn a guaranteed 9% to 11% return on capital investments. So for the past several years, Xcel pursued a renewable energy buildout, along with supporting infrastructure, and its guaranteed returns have been to the pleasure of the utility’s shareholders. Though, ratepayers have had to pay for all that infrastructure with rapidly rising electricity rates.
Today, Montalbano wrote, 54% of Colorado’s electricity comes from reliable baseload thermal plants running on coal and natural gas. During January’s Winter Storm Fern, those plants supplied 85% of Xcel’s electricity generation, making them indispensable.
That means 421,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from Boulder’s electricity will drop very little between now and 2035, much less to zero by 2030.
Boulder going green would have no impact on global warming
Even if Boulder were to reach net-zero emissions by 2035, it would have almost no impact on global warming. Chris Martz, a meteorologist and policy analyst for the nonprofit Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow built a tool to calculate the averted warming out to 2100 from emission reductions.
If Boulder eliminated 100% of its 1.1 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 9 years — a 9.1% annual reduction — the world would only be 0.0004 degrees Celsius cooler by 2100 than it would have otherwise been, according to Martz’s calculations.
If Boulder, Colorado, reaches its goal of net-zero emissions by 2035, it will reduce global warming by 0.0004 Celsius by 2100.
