Tag Archives: climate planning
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
GHG Emission Targets v. Limits: The Constitutionality of Executive Orders S-3-05 and B-30-15
Recently, Legislative Counsel Dian F. Boyer wrote an opinion answering questions from State Senator Jean Fuller of California’s 16th Senate District regarding California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (commonly known as AB 32) and Executive Branch Authority. The nonbinding … Continue reading
Role of Renewable Energy Credits and Carbon Offsets
(Many thanks to Cameron Bernhardt for his research for this post) This second post continues the discussion of the role of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) and Carbon Offset Credits in California policies started in the last post. In the next … Continue reading
Renewable Energy Credits and Carbon Offset Credits
(Many thanks to Cameron Bernhardt for research and writing for this post) While EPIC has written about renewable energy credits in California in the past, this constitutes the first of a series of blog posts related to renewable energy credits … Continue reading
Center for Biological Diversity et al., v. California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Newhall Land and Farming Company: the Burden of CEQA Land Use GHG Emission Reduction Analysis at the Local Level
The Center for Biological Diversity et al., v. California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and The Newhall Land and Farming Company, 62 Cal.4th 204 (2015)(hereafter, the Newhall Land case) addresses three issues: 1) whether the project level environmental impact report … Continue reading
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
COPs and CAPs: Goals for stabilization of carbon emissions
The COP21 talks and events started on Monday November 30, 2015. Though California is not a nation, and therefore not a member of the UNFCCC, there are 8 California lawmakers accompanying Governor Brown to the Conference. While the US government, … Continue reading
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