Whitby may be the worst place for per capita CO2 emissions in the GTA — 13.02 tonnes — but it has plenty of bad company in areas surrounding Toronto, according to a recent report from two Canadian researchers.

“Whitby’s the highest, but if you look at the figures you’ll see it’s really the whole suburbs, it’s basically the 905,’’ says Dan Hoornweg, lead urban specialist at the World Bank. Hoornweg, together with University of Toronto master’s student Lorraine Sugar, co-authored a report called Cities and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Moving Forward.

The report was published in the Jan. 10 edition of Environment and Urbanization.

The researchers used data from energy-use figures in the 2001 census and the Transportation Tomorrow survey, a cooperative compilation put together regularly by local and provincial governments. These were also part of another study published in 2006 that Hoornweg and Sugar used, produced by U of T Civil Engineering professor Chris Kennedy and student Jared R. Vandeweghe (BASc 0T6), analyzing residential greenhouse gas emissions in the Toronto metropolitan area.

What it shows may surprise those who think the congested downtown core is the problem. Looking at per capita neighbourhood carbon emissions, the report indicates that suburbanites produce more than downtowners.

Follow the link to read the full article on the Toronto Star website.