Climate Change Strategies & Policies

Climate Change Strategies & Policies

Efforts are underway in many nations to curb greenhouse gas emissions as well as adapt to the anticipated disruptions brought about by climate change. The team looks at climate mitigation assessment activities on a local, state, national, and international scale.

CO2 Reduction graphicModeling Efforts for Change

Climate change is one of the most important environmental issues of our time.

Many nations are moving toward implementing strategies to resolve this problem, along with additional efforts at the state, city and local levels.

We have been deeply involved in modeling climate change mitigation efforts for almost a decade in California, where strong state leadership has initiated a large set of complementary policies to reduce greenhouse emissions through 2050.

Our group also contributes to national-level modeling efforts, where the focus has been on emission reductions from industrial sector manufacturing, transportation sector modeling, assessment of hydrogen technologies and across-the-board greenhouse gas inventory assessment.

Finally, our group has reviewed strategies with global impact, including low-carbon electricity generation technologies, low-carbon synthetic fuels and reduction of high global warming potential refrigerants.

Ongoing Projects

  • California climate policy assessment
  • Modeling historical and projected greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the California economy under the current set of policy assumptions using the CALGAPS model, with the ability to explore the effects of hypothetical policies.
  • Understanding the impact of building-sector efficiency, electrification and zero net energy policies on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions statewide and by climate zone
  • Exploration of the impacts of future climate policy on the need for underground natural gas storage in California
  • Climate change impacts on California’s energy system
  • Modeling how changes in climate will impact energy supply and demand, using downscaled general circulation model results for California through collaboration with the University of California, Irvine.
  • Estimating the risk of future wildfires and potential impacts on California’s electricity transmission grid
  • U.S.-wide greenhouse gas emissions projections
  • Assessment of U.S. policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions through 2025 and likelihood of compliance with U.S. climate pledges under the Paris Agreement.
  • Development of models for assessing the potential for energy and greenhouse gas savings from the industrial sector, focusing on the U.S. petroleum refining sector and advanced manufacturing
  • Impacts of transportation sector strategies, such as car-sharing and autonomous vehicles, on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
  • Assessment of hydrogen resources and hydrogen-powered end uses (e.g., renewably-generated hydrogen as a feedstock or energy carrier, fuel cell electric vehicles) for reduced greenhouse gas emissions and risks, barriers, and opportunities of greater adoption of hydrogen resources and end-uses.
  • Global strategies
  • Assessing the global progress, current state and future prospects of low-carbon electricity generation technologies.
  • Assessment of the potential benefits of artificial photosynthesis for the production of hydrogen and hydrocarbon fuels to replace fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Modeling the transition of high global warming potential (high GWP) refrigerants to lower GWP refrigerants in heating and cooling equipment for costs, overall greenhouse gas reductions, and policy implications.
  • Geospatially and temporally resolved lightning strike analysis for electric utility reliability assessments.