Climate Legislation: Is 20 the new 17?
Posted December 14, 2009 in Solving Global Warming
As the Copenhagen talks reach decision time, the annual emissions forecast by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) projects lower CO2 emissions than last year’s report. The Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) is released every year by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent arm of DOE.
As the figure below illustrates, AEO 's annual projections have steadily declined. The reasons? -- A mix of effective clean energy policies, and the current economic downturn. While the recession is certainly nothing to celebrate, there is at least one silver lining: CO2 emissions are projected to remain lower than expected even after the economy has shifted back into solid growth. The lower the forecast of business-as-usual (reference) emissions, the easier it is to meet any target required by climate legislation.
With the new forecast, it’s looking like meeting a 20% target is actually going to be easier than what we expected it would take to meet the target passed last June by the U.S. House of Representatives in the Waxman-Markey BIll (ACES) —17% below 2005 levels by 2020. Under the AEO 2009 March forecast, that would have required a cumulative emissions reduction of 5 billion tons by 2020. Under the new AEO 2010 forecast, we would only have to reduce a cumulative 4.2 billion tons to meet a 20% target.
In short, it will be a lot easier to meet the 17% target the Administration is bringing to the table in Copenhagen. Indeed, these numbers make a good case for a target even higher than 20%. What are we waiting for?
