Louisiana Energy Policy Simulator Insights: Current Emissions Trajectory, NDC Scenario

Research using the Louisiana Energy Policy Simulator developed by Energy Innovation and RMI evaluates Louisiana’s current emissions trajectory, finding the state’s economy-wide emissions will increase 30 percent by 2050 compared to 2020 under a business-as-usual scenario, not including proposed industrial facilities. But, the modeling shows implementing stronger climate policies across the buildings, power, industrial, land use, and transportation sectors could establish Louisiana as America’s clean energy innovation hub. An ambitious climate policy pathway could reduce emissions 97 percent by 2050, create 111,000 new job-years in 2030, avoid approximately 2,300 premature deaths by 2050, and align the state with the United …

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Home of the Future: Building for Net Zero

In the lead up to the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), media channels are full of content highlighting both the issues and the challenges surrounding climate change. Agencies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warn that global warming will exceed 2°C during the 21st century. They believe achieving the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement will soon be “beyond reach” unless rapid and deep emissions reductions in CO₂ and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) occur in the next decade.

One of the largest carbon-emitting industries is the building sector. Building construction and operations accounted for 39% …

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State of Climate Action 2021: Systems Transformations Required to Limit Global Warming to 1.5°C

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires far-reaching transformations across power generation, buildings, industry, transport, land use, coastal zone management, and agriculture, as well as the immediate scale-up of technological carbon removal and climate finance. This report translates these transitions into 40 targets for 2030 and 2050, with measurable indicators.

Transformations, particularly those driven by new technology adoption, often unfold slowly before accelerating after crossing a tipping point. Nearly a quarter of indicators assessed new technology adoption, with some already growing exponentially. This report considers such nonlinear change in its methodology.

The transitions required to avoid the worst climate impacts are …

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Policy Note: California State Bond Policy and Climate Risk

California, like most state and local governments, finances a significant portion of its long–term infrastructure investments through the issuance of general obligation bonds. The funds generated by the sale of these bonds – exceeding $70 billion outstanding in each of the past three years, compared to annual state budget expenditures of approximately $200 billion – is used to pay for a wide range of state investments, including investments in state buildings, transportation infrastructure, and natural resource management.

Financial regulators have begun to recognize the connection between public bond issuance and climate change–related …

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Decarbonizing Homes: Improving Health in Low-Income Communities through Beneficial Electrification

In the United States today, 26 million low-income households burn costly, health-damaging, and climate-disrupting fossil fuels inside their homes. Communities of color are disproportionately overburdened by pollution from burning fossil fuels, as well as energy costs and poor housing quality. This is due in part to structural racism throughout our housing and economic systems. Many of these communities are also highly vulnerable to the extreme weather events brought on by climate change. They lack comparable access to cooling and resilient infrastructure, as well as the financial means to relocate.

In order to meet the country’s climate goals and protect public …

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Regulating New Fossil-Fuel Appliances Under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act

Most residential and commercial buildings use appliances powered with fossil fuels for space and/or water heating. Collectively, these appliances emit twice the level of smog-forming nitrogen oxides as the nation’s gas-fired power plants and almost as much planet-warming carbon dioxide. Yet while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has limited gas power plants’ NOx emissions since the 1970s and their greenhouse gas emissions since 2015, the agency has never regulated emissions from residential appliances and restricts emissions from only a tiny fraction of heating systems in commercial buildings.

This report finds that EPA has authority under Section 111(b) of the …

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The 3rd National Risk Assessment: Infrastructure on the Brink

Changing environmental conditions are driving worsening flood events, with consequences for counties, cities, towns, and local communities. Individuals whose homes were spared the impact of a particular flood event are increasingly likely to find their local roads, businesses, critical infrastructure, utilities, or emergency services affected by flooding, indirectly threatening their quality of life, safety, and wellbeing. A truly comprehensive understanding of individual flood risk from a changing climate must therefore consider the resiliency of local communities to flood, and determine the extent to which physical and soft infrastructure are at risk.

This report will provide the first ever nation-wide understanding …

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Energy Efficiency Jobs in America

More than 2.1 million Americans now work in energy efficiency (EE), representing the biggest part of the entire energy sector. Workers in every state and community pull on their gloves and boots daily to help make our homes, offices, schools and other buildings more efficient. And some “boot up” in an office rather than out in the field, like developers of advanced energy management software, architects and designers, and administrative staff.

Whether EE workers upgrade heating/cooling systems or improve building enclosures, manufacture Energy Star equipment and appliances or install advanced lighting systems, they’re also helping American consumers, businesses and local …

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Using Digitalization to Achieve Decarbonization Goals

Digital technologies—such as sensors, networked devices, and data analytics—are already changing how energy is used and consumed across the economy. As digitalization expands, it is creating new opportunities to optimize energy use and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Opportunities in key sectors include the following:

Power: Digitalization can improve the grid’s ability to integrate more variable renewable energy, create an interconnected grid with multi-directional power flow, and expand the use of demand response strategies (including smart charging of electric vehicles).

Transportation: In addition to enabling electric vehicles to provide flexible load and storage resources for the power grid, digitalization of transportation …

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Solar Futures Study

Dramatic improvements to solar technologies and other clean energy technologies have enabled recent rapid growth in deployment and are providing cost-effective options for decarbonizing the U.S. electric grid. The Solar Futures Study explores the role of solar in decarbonizing the grid. Through state-of-the-art modeling, the study envisions deep grid decarbonization by 2035, as driven by a required emissions-reduction target. It also explores how electrification could enable a low-carbon grid to extend decarbonization to the broader energy system (the electric grid plus all direct fuel use in buildings, transportation, and industry) through 2050.

The Solar Futures Study uses a suite of …

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