Climate 411

Clean heat standards: an effective climate policy for the thermal sector

By Jolette Westbrook / Published: March 11, 2024

Downtown Boston. Photo: Emmanuel Huybrechts via Wikimedia Commons

This post was co-authored by Chris Neme, Co-Founder and Principal of Energy Futures Group

The concept of a Clean Heat Standard (CHS) is gaining traction in multiple jurisdictions as a way to drive larger, faster reductions in the thermal sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. At least ten U.S. states are considering the policy, with Colorado and Vermont having enacted legislation and Massachusetts and Maryland considering a CHS regulation.

A new report commissioned by Environmental Defense Fund and prepared by Energy Futures Group provides an overview of key design elements that can be used for a CHS, as well as a look at how four states are approaching these elements in their own CHS development process.

Read More »

Posted in Cities and states, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Partners for Change, Policy / Comments are closed

Building a greener future: How federal purchasing power can drive a low-carbon cement industry

By Akin Olumoroti / Published: March 7, 2024

This blog was co-authored by Dara Diamond, Federal Climate Innovation Intern

Historic climate investments from the Biden administration have put a much-needed down payment toward cutting emissions from industry — a major economic sector that makes up over a quarter of U.S. emissions. Still, a lot of hard work remains to meaningfully scale up solutions in this sector. A particularly tricky piece of the industrial emissions problem is hidden in plain sight all around us, in our buildings, sidewalks, highways and bridges: cement.

The scale of this climate challenge is colossal. Cement is the most widely used man-made material on the planet. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world.

To slash emissions from cement production, policymakers will need to make the most of existing climate investments and put forward a range of new solutions, including putting the federal government’s massive purchasing power to work.

Here is why cement poses unique climate challenges — and how policymakers can leverage public procurement to help meet them.

Read More »

Posted in Clean Power Plan, Economics, Energy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, Innovation, Policy, Science / Comments are closed

EDF’s new report looks at Non-Pipeline Alternatives to meet energy needs

By EDF Blogs / Published: February 22, 2024

(This post was written by EDF’s Magdalen Sullivan and Erin Murphy. It was originally posted here)

Many states are adopting declining emission limits as a way to address the severe and growing dangers of the climate crisis, and that means state utility regulators are grappling with how to decarbonize energy systems, manage costs, and meet demand.

Traditional approaches to meeting energy demand with natural gas have included pipeline construction, pipeline replacement, or large gas system upgrades – but these may no longer be appropriate investments in light of new policies and changing customer preferences.

Instead, increasingly popular options are Non-Pipeline Alternatives – or NPAs. They are projects designed to meet energy demand without expensive infrastructure projects that run counter to state climate goals.

EDF has a new report, Non-Pipeline Alternatives: Meeting Energy Demand Responsibly, that has guidance and analysis to help states develop regulatory frameworks for NPA evaluation and implementation, and to help utilities successfully implement NPA programs.

Read More »

Posted in News / Comments are closed

As it enters its eleventh year, California’s cap-and-trade program continues to raise revenue to fight the climate crisis

By Caroline Jones / Published: February 22, 2024

This blog was co-authored by Katelyn Roedner Sutter, California State Director 

Results of the latest Western Climate Initiative auction were released today, and we continue to see strong demand for allowances. This was the first quarterly auction of 2024, and it was a strong start for this marquee climate program.

This auction is expected to generate roughly $1.31 billion for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which will invest in projects around the state that electrify transportation, reduce household energy costs, strengthen resilience to natural disasters, and more. This funding comes at a crucial time, as California faces both ongoing impacts from climate change and a challenging budget year.

February auction results

  • All 51.2 million current vintage allowances offered for sale were purchased, resulting in the 14th consecutive sold-out auction. This is 11% or 6.4 million fewer allowances than were offered at the previous auction.
  • The current auction settled at a record price of $41.76, $17.72 above the $24.04 floor price and $3.03 above the November 2023 settlement price of $38.73.
  • All of the 7.2 million future vintage allowances offered for sale were purchased — these allowances can be used for compliance beginning in 2027. This is about 366,000 allowances fewer than were offered at the previous advance auction.
  • Future vintage allowances settled at $41.00, $16.96 above the $24.04 floor price and $3.60 above the November settlement price of $37.40.

Read More »

Posted in California, Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News / Comments are closed

Progress to catalyze jurisdictional REDD+

By Angela Churie Kallhauge / Published: February 2, 2024
Boat on a river in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest

Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by Leslie Von Pless, EDF.

This blog post is authored by Angela Churie Kallhauge, Executive Vice President, Impact at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), with contribution from Katie Goslee, Director of Nature-Based Solutions, Winrock International; Stephanie Wang, Associate Director, Wildlife Conservation Society; Jason Funk, REDD+ Strategy Director at Conservation International; and Daniela Rey Christen, Director, Climate Law and Policy

In the fight against the climate crisis, high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ is intended to be transformational, giving forest communities and governments the ability to tap into the voluntary carbon market to access climate finance needed to ensure that large areas of tropical forests remain intact.

Jurisdictional REDD+ can deliver results, to the benefit of people, nature, and climate. Research shows that larger scale programs to pay for emission reductions from forest conservation – the scale of a whole forest region, state, or nation – are better able to ensure additionality and prevent leakage than are smaller-scale carbon programs. And larger scale programs do so for a longer period of time.

Ensuring high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ programs are fully functioning has therefore become a key priority for many actors working to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, including businesses, governments, and Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

One problem is that forest nations looking to establish jurisdictional REDD+ programs may not currently have the technical capacity needed to deliver high-integrity carbon credits. This is holding back their access to carbon markets, even as demand for high-integrity jurisdictional tropical forest credits seems poised to accelerate.

The task at hand is to support these jurisdictions in fully unlocking the promise and potential of high-integrity carbon markets at the rapid pace and large scale needed to address the climate crisis. We don’t have much time. If we don’t end and reverse tropical deforestation and degradation by 2030 – only six years from now – the effects could be irreversible.

Read More »

Posted in Carbon Markets, Forest protection, Indigenous People, International, REDD+, United Nations / Comments are closed

Want to understand Natural Climate Solutions Crediting? We have a handbook for that.

By Christine Gerbode / Published: February 1, 2024
Cover image of the Natural Climate Solutions Crediting Handbook

The Natural Climate Solutions Crediting Handbook

This blog was authored by Christine Gerbode, EDF’s Manager of Jurisdictional Alliances and Britta Johnston, Senior Policy Analyst for Natural Climate Solutions at EDF.

Natural climate solutions are essential to achieving our global climate goals. A range of studies suggest that a major global scale-up of NCS activities (that is, ways of protecting, restoring, and better managing ecosystems and working lands) can contribute as much as a third of the climate mitigation needed to keep us on track with global climate goals by 2030. That’s in addition to the many other benefits that NCS can bring to people and the planet.

Well-designed NCS crediting systems can help channel urgently needed finance to the people, communities, and countries that steward natural ecosystems and working landscapes.

But NCS crediting remains controversial, in part because it can be a challenge to understand: new crediting methods, business models, and policy frameworks are evolving quickly at local and international levels, and competing messages come from passionate voices working on all sides. If uncertainty, misunderstandings, and confusion lead to unwarranted mistrust of NCS crediting, well-intentioned actors might be pushed to unnecessarily abandon one of the most powerful potential tools in the climate fight.

Stakeholders across the climate space need urgent help to cut through the noise on NCS crediting. The NCS Crediting Handbook aims to meet this need by clearly laying out how high-quality NCS crediting can work—for credit sellers, for credit buyers, and as part of an effective and ethical global climate response.

Read More »

Posted in Carbon Markets, Forest protection, News, REDD+ / Comments are closed