Author Archives: Scott Anders
Coming to Terms with Climate Commitments: How difficult is carbon neutrality to achieve?
In my last post on “coming to terms” with climate commitments, I focused on the terms and the meaning of various climate commitments. It is important to understand what they mean but it is equally important to understand the magnitude … Continue reading
Posted in climate planning, GHG targets, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas
Tagged California, Climate Change, climate planning, Greenhouse Gas
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Coming to Terms with Climate Commitments: What Do They Mean?
From local governments to Fortune 500 companies, it seems everyone has a climate commitment these days. President Biden has a goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050. California Governor Gavin Newsom asked the State’s Air … Continue reading
Posted in climate planning, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas
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Reduce, Preserve, Remove: A Framework for Climate Action
Sometimes we get so focused on our silos that we don’t see connections across silos or the broader context. At EPIC we spend a lot of time working on policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but during a recent project on carbon … Continue reading
Posted in climate planning, GHGs, Greenhouse Gas
Tagged Climate Change, climate planning, Greenhouse Gas
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Paying for Carbon Performance
Historically in California, programs to encourage energy-efficient or renewable energy technologies provide upfront financial incentives. While the dollar amounts of these incentives are typically developed in part based on the lifecycle costs and performance of the technology in question, very … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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The Cost of a CAP Part 2: How Much is This Climate Action Plan Going to Cost Our City?
More and more, local jurisdiction staff, decision makers, and stakeholders are interested in the cost of implementing climate action plan measures and actions. We are often asked by local jurisdiction officials some form of the question: how much is thing … Continue reading
Posted in Greenhouse Gas
Tagged CAPs, Climate Action Plans, Cost Analysis, local government
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Does Your Rooftop Solar System Reduce Your Carbon Footprint? It Depends…
At first glance this is a pretty straight forward issue. If you put solar modules on your home or business, you are generating clean, emissions-free electricity. Right? Well, it depends…in part on how you paid for your system. If you … Continue reading
Causation as the Basis for Attributing Greenhouse Emissions from Electricity
I have written about the importance of electric emissions factors to estimating greenhouse gas emissions in inventories and the impacts of policies to reduce emissions (see here, here, and here). This post discusses the issue of attributing emissions from electricity … Continue reading
Posted in Greenhouse Gas
Tagged climate action plan, climate planning, electric, Electricity, greenhouse gases, methodology
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Estimating the GHG Emissions Impacts of Reducing or Displacing Electricity: Is it time for a standard method in California?
California has adopted legislation and has executive orders in place laying out aggressive, long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. There are also specific energy policies including those to increase efficiency, generate more renewable electricity, and to reduce fossil fuel use … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Greenhouse Gas, Renewable Energy
Tagged AB 32, California, Carbon Dioxide, CEQA, climate planning, Electricity, Energy, Greenhouse Gas, Renewable
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Splitting the Emissions Baby: Allocating GHG Reductions in the Electricity Sector Part II
In my last post, I discussed the dilemma of how to allocate the avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emission between policies that policies to increase renewable electricity and reduce electricity consumption. Estimating the effects of increased renewable first will artificially increase … Continue reading
Splitting the Emissions Baby: Allocating GHG Reductions in the Electricity Sector Part I
One area of our work at EPIC is to provide technical support to cities, counties, and regional planning organizations in the climate planning process. This work includes estimating greenhouse gas emissions for inventories and the reductions expected from a variety of policies … Continue reading
Posted in Greenhouse Gas
Tagged climate planning, Electricity, Energy Efficiency, Greenhouse Gas, local government, Renewable
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