Full Title: Equity-Focused Climate Strategies for Colorado
Author(s): Elena Krieger, Boris Lukanov, Ana McPhail, Audrey Smith, Annelise Dillon
Publisher(s): Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE)
Publication Date: August 4, 2021
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
In the face of a warming climate and associated climate change impacts, the State of Colorado is embarking on an ambitious multi-decade effort to dramatically cut carbon emissions while confronting a growing need to build climate resilience. The State recently set targets to expand renewable electricity generation while slashing economy-wide greenhouse emissions. It is now developing pathways and policies to achieve these goals.
To better understand the technical approaches Colorado could follow to achieve its climate targets, Evolved Energy Research—working with Sierra Club, NRDC, and GridLab—recently modeled four potential decarbonization pathways from 2020-2050. These pathways rely on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electrification measures to reduce fossil fuel use in buildings, transportation, power generation, and industry. While the locations of greenhouse gas emission sources are not important from a climate perspective, many greenhouse gases are co-mingled with health-damaging air pollutants including, but not limited to, criteria air pollutants and hazardous air pollutants. As such, in this report, we add spatial dimensions to these techno-economic statewide decarbonization pathways to better understand the ways in which climate policy could reduce—or exacerbate—health-damaging air pollutant emissions, energy cost burdens, and climate impacts in different communities throughout the state