Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions (2024) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 39-86
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1 Net-zero emissions mean that any ongoing atmospheric release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) covered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
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• Social, institutional, and behavioral dimensions -- What are the societal, institutional, behav ioral, and equity drivers and implications of deep decarbonization; how do the impacts of deep decarbonization differ across states, regions, and urban versus rural areas and how can equity issues be identified and the uneven distribution of impacts be addressed; and what is the role of the private sector in achieving emissions reductions, including companies' influence on their external supply chains; what are the economic opportunities associated with deep decarbonization; and what are the workforce and human capital needs? • Policy coordination and sequencing at local, state, and federal levels -- What near-term policy developments at local, state, and federal levels are driving decarbonization; how can policies be sequenced to best achieve near-, medium-, and long-term goals; and what synergies exist between mitigation, adaptation, resilience, and economic development?
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GHG emissions inventory, the historical and potential future changes in emissions within different sectors, and the commit tee's choice of a 30-year timeframe to net zero as its emissions reduction goal. It provides an illustrative pathway to this overall emissions goal and notes the role of four key ingredients to meet that goal: deep reductions in CO2 emissions, declines in non-CO2 GHGs, maintenance or expansion of land carbon sinks, and expansion of negative emissions technologies.
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Within the report, the committee identifies "no-regrets" actions that would be robust to addressing uncertainties about the energy system's final technological mix and hedging actions designed to keep open as many viable paths to net zero as possible. It also identifies sector-specific research priorities and technological goals for expanding the innovation toolkit, particularly for sectors where low GHG emissions alternatives are in pilot stages or nascent industries.
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Notably, the committee convened several listening ses sions with climate and environmental justice experts and groups focused on fairness, equity, and justice in the energy transition, which led to an expansion of the commit tee to include more such expertise. These discussions and others led to the list of top ics covered in the second report -- including state and local decarbonization efforts, terrestrial carbon sinks, health impacts of the energy system, workforce and employ ment economics, and sector-specific technologies and policies -- and to the addition of new committee members with expertise in these areas.
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Given the evidence in early 2021 that a majority in Congress intended to pass comprehensive climate legislation, the committee realized that the second report would be most useful if its wider assessment were to include a detailed analysis of any new comprehensive climate and energy policy portfolio. While wait ing for the new legislation, the committee prepared to rapidly finish a draft for review of its second report once new legislation was passed by Congress or when it became clear that there would be none.
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Webinar topics were wide-ranging and included leveraging financial systems for decarbonization; soil carbon offsets; government, nonprofit, and philanthropic perspectives on implementing a just and equitable energy transition; manufacturing and industrial decarbonization; public engagement strategies; and priority research and development for building technolo gies. (Appendix D provides a list of these webinars.)
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Each sectoral chapter assesses how well current policies will achieve the carbon emissions objectives for the sector, identifies gaps and barriers, and provides recommendations to close or overcome them. Owing to the complexity of emissions from this sector, the land use chapter includes discussion of the spectrum of GHG emissions and mitiga tion options from agriculture, the uptake of carbon from terrestrial sinks, and land requirements for renewable energy.
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For example, recognizing the role of the politics of climate change in executing current policies and adopting new ones, especially in this time of polarized political and public discourse, the committee discussed at length the need for public engagement and a strong social contract and value proposition. Although such steps will clearly not guarantee success, to not undertake them would doom this effort to failure.
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Changes in the Federal Policy Relevant for the Second Report The current comprehensive decarbonization policy portfolio of the United States did not come together until August 2022, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L.
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2023; CBO 2022) encompasses a wide variety of technologies, prioritizes low-income and disadvantaged communities, and -- as dis cussed further below -- makes significant progress toward national 2030 emissions goals and moves the nation much or most of the way to a trajectory that reaches net zero at midcentury (Larsen et al.
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For example, NHTSA and EPA have released new vehicle fuel economy and GHG emissions standards, respectively, under their existing legislative authorities. In April 2023, EPA proposed more stringent, performance-based GHG and criteria pollut ant standards under the Clean Air Act for model year 2027–2032 light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles.
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• White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy (EO • Establish criteria to ensure equitable 14008) and effective energy transition • White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council funding.
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• Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles -- Phase 3 (88 Fed.
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• State-based home energy efficiency contractor training grants (IRA, §50123) • Assistance for latest and zero building energy code adoption (IRA, §50131)
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Establish a federal Green Bank to finance Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (IRA, §60103) low- or zero-carbon technology, business creation, and infrastructure.
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• Federal permitting improvement (IIJA, §70801) Establish educational and training • Energy auditor training grant program (IIJA, §40503)
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• Carbon capture demonstration and pilot programs (IIJA, §41004) • Renewable energy projects (IIJA, §41007)
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environmental justice (EJ) mapping and • Environmental and climate justice block grants (IRA, screening tool and reporting to guide §60201)
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Both would establish a Green Bank, expand electric vehicle charging networks, and increase funding for tribal electrification and for energy expenses, home electrification, and weatherization of low-income households. Finding 1-1: The climate policy portfolio in the Inflation Reduction Act depends entirely on incentives, with the exception of a fee on fugitive methane emissions, whereas the committee's first report recommended a broad portfolio of incentives, taxes, regulatory standards, and statutes creating new institutions/ entities.
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These additional provisions would backstop the incentives in current policy and help fill gaps between incentives. In particular, the recommended carbon tax would backstop all of the incentives for emissions reductions in the current bills and extend beyond the IRA sunset date of 2032, thus accelerating coal-fired power plant retirements relative to the current policy landscape of subsidizing renewables and existing nuclear.
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Energy Information Administra tion (EIA) , and a multi-model analysis using nine independent models -- conclude that the IRA would yield approximately 70–80 percent of the emissions reductions necessary to achieve the first two of the above targets, and the first 10 years of the third (Bistline et al.
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. As summarized in Figure 1-2, these groups project be tween 32–43 percent reductions in GHG emissions below 2005 levels by 2030, com pared to approximately 25–35 percent reductions in a business-as-usual (BAU)
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Political, Judicial, and Societal Polarization Risks -- the risk of a change in policy landscape. This could include, for example, repeal of climate and energy provisions in the IRA, federal executive branch or state agency action that limits IRA implementa tion, or new legislation that inhibits climate mitigation efforts.
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Execution Risk -- the risk that the nation will be unable to execute the energy and climate policies in the IRA, IIJA, and CHIPS and the related regulatory initiatives at the intended pace and scale, or that the policies will not work as intended because of a wide variety of behavioral, organizational, and political factors. The White House and federal agencies clearly view these execution risks as the most important and daunting vulnerabilities facing the current policy portfolio, given their public statements and the focused energy of their implementation effort.
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. The record annual deployment of new wind and solar capacity is approximately 25 GW in both 2020 and 2021, but the average pace must accelerate by 100–300 percent during the 2020s to put the nation on a path to net zero, with the larger number corresponding to a 100 percent renewable energy system, and the smaller corresponding to a cheapest system that includes some nuclear electricity and fossil assets with carbon capture and storage (CCS)
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Specifically, will tax credits and other incentives in the IRA, IIJA, and CHIPS deliver the required pace of change, given behavioral inertia by consumers, organizational inertia in the electricity sector, and inevitable targeted messaging by entrenched financial interests? This gap would be filled by the more diverse policy portfolio in Recommendation 1-1, as well as the more detailed recommendations in Chapter 5 to strengthen public engagement in the transition.
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Unless otherwise stated, this report uses the sector-specific scenarios in "The Long-Term Strategy of the United States: Pathways to Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050" issued by the White House in late 2021 because these encompass most published scenarios and reflect current U.S. policy goals (Figures 1-3 and 1-4)
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600 Methane Non-CO2 emissions 400 Nitrous Oxide 200 Fluorinated gases 0 2005 2020 2050 Year FIGURE 1-4 Projected ranges of methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gas emissions over time. These are the three categories of non-CO2 greenhouse gases regulated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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.8 In contrast, the rapid decline in emissions from the electricity sector in Figure 1-3 reflects the robust deployment of renewable electricity owing to the reductions in costs for those technologies and the tax credits provided within the IRA.9 It should be noted, however, that non-cost barriers to the deployment of these technologies -- including supply chain development, need for skilled labor and enhanced public engagement, regulatory approvals, and engineering, procurement, and construction of both generation and transmission -- will have to be addressed to achieve the projected emissions reductions. The relatively slow reductions for nitrous 8 Chapter 7 makes the case that much more could be done in the buildings sector over the next 10 years, and that this would reduce the need for a rapid deployment of carbon dioxide removal technology during the 2040s (Figure 1-2)
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within the ranges for 2050 sectoral emissions in Figure 1-3 and for GHG-specific emissions in Figure 1-4, together with an LULUCF net emission of −940 MtCO2e/y, sum to zero net emissions. While the overarching emissions reduction goal of 50 percent by 2030 and net zero by midcentury is a singular objective, the discussion above makes clear that it is really the summation of sector-specific emissions reductions.
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Major health benefits are possible in the transition, particularly in reduced exposure to air pollution from fossil fuel combus tion. Other health benefits, both physical and mental, can also accrue through active transportation, changes in nutrition policies, and improvements in the characteris tics of the built environment, like urban tree cover and improved walkability.
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. The committee chose to emphasize public engagement rather than public acceptance or support for several reasons.
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The committee's first report recommended that Congress establish an executive-level Office of Equitable Energy Transitions to serve as the designated centralized authority to establish criteria to ensure equitable and effective allocation of energy transition funding and monitor progress. No such authority was included within the IRA, IIJA, or CHIPS, although, as shown in Table 1-1, elements of EO 14008 establish some aspects of the committee's recommended office.
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Notably, the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council (IAC) , established by EO 14008, is tasked with developing performance metrics to ensure accountability and publishing an annual public performance scorecard on the implementation of Justice40.
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Creation of indicators Each federal agency is responsible for creating indicators and and establishment of establishing targets. targets EO 14008 -- To identify geographically defined disadvantaged communities for any covered programs under the Justice40 Initiative and for programs where a statute directs resources to disadvantaged communities, federal agencies are expected to use the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST)
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outcomes Consistency in reporting and evaluation is also necessary for creating a • trends in comprehensive picture. technology and The Evidence Act requires agencies to undertake program infrastructure evaluation, with coordination and standards established by the deployment law's lead implementer, OMB.
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and research to support development and evaluation of equity indicators and public engagement Communication/ Each federal agency is responsible for reporting on progress and/ reporting short- or outcomes associated with relevant agency decarbonization and long-term programs. outlooks containing As of the writing of this report, no single entity has been tasked an assessment of with reporting on (1)
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(The green check indicates that the evaluation component is being addressed via the current policy portfolio, and the orange diamond indicates a gap between the current policy portfolio and the committee's recommendations.) statutes, such information collection would also be valuable in terms of public and private investment and programmatic activities (e.g., tax credits and the consumer investments related to them, and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund investments and lending activities)
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While it is too early to assess their durability, credibility, and efficacy, the nascent communication efforts by the current administration and key agencies, notably CEQ -- such as the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEQ 2022) and the proposed Environmental Justice Scorecard (Federal Register 2022)
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a. Department of the Treasury information from its administration of clean energy tax credits could be one source of data, given their centrality in implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)
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c. The entity's public communications should include short- and long term outlooks and reviews of agencies' progress toward equitable de carbonization in the United States, and explicitly characterize trends in greenhouse gas emissions, infrastructure deployment, employ ment, and equity metrics.
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But then, Congress passed historic legislation that sets the nation on a fundamentally new course and establishes the United States as an inter national leader in the fight against climate change. The rest of this report shows how current federal legislation and executive actions, along with actions at the subnational levels, will touch nearly all facets of the energy economy, while providing the energy services the nation needs at a price it can afford.
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Policy Portfolio Recommended the Treasury, • Land use reductions in the First Environmental • Transportation Report: National Protection Agency • Industry Greenhouse Gas • Finance Emissions Budget • Fossil fuels and Economy Wide Carbon Tax 1-2: Leverage Congress • Electricity • GHG reductions Rigorous and the Evidence Act and Office of • Buildings • Equity Transparent to Execute Data Management and • Land use • Health Analysis and Collection and Budget (OMB) • Transportation • Employment Reporting Evaluation on • Industry • Public for Adaptive Decarbonization • Finance engagement Management Investments and • Fossil fuels Programs 1-3: Identify and Congress • Electricity • GHG reductions Rigorous and Provide Resources and single • Buildings • Equity Transparent for a Central Entity other agency • Land use • Health Analysis and to Provide Timely, (e.g., Energy • Transportation • Employment Reporting Public-Facing Information • Industry • Public for Adaptive Information Administration, • Finance engagement Management on the Nation's Global Change • Fossil fuels Progress Toward Research Program, Decarbonization OMB)
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2023a. "Emissions and Energy Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act." Science 380(6652)
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2023b. "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles -- Phase 3." Federal Register 88(81)
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2022. "Updated Inflation Reduction Act Modeling Us ing the Energy Policy Simulator." San Francisco: Energy Innovation.
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2022c. "Biden-Harris Administration Releases Inflation Reduction Act Guidebook for Clean Energy and Climate Programs." https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/15/biden-harris administration-releases-inflation-reduction-act-guidebook-for-clean-energy-and-climate-programs.
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