Global Climate Change Resource Center

EPRI's global climate research provides public- and private-sector decision makers and other stakeholders with analysis and information on potential costs and benefits of domestic and international climate policy proposals. The research also identifies potential options and corporate strategies for complying with GHG emission reduction requirements.

EPRI's climate research is comprised of two programs:

Research Highlights

EPRI Continues GHG Offset Policy Dialogue with Exploration of Opportunities to Create Nitrous Oxide (N2O) Emission Reductions in U.S. Agriculture

Representatives from the policymaking, environmental, industrial, financial, agriculture and research communities gathered in Washington, D.C. for EPRI's most recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions offsets workshop. The 11th workshop held on Nov. 4, 2011 explored the potential to reduce GHG emissions by improving nitrogen fertilizer management in U.S. agricultural crop production to reduce nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (aka "nutrient management"). For more information, contact Adam Diamant, (510) 260-9105.

EPRI Publshes New Report on the “Aggregation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Offsets: Benefits, Existing Methods and Key Challenges.”

This EPRI report designed to develop and disseminate a set of lessons learned about the aggregation of individual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions offset projects into larger, organized configurations that can yield large-scale GHG emissions offsets. Aggregation groups geographically and/or temporally dispersed activities that reduce emissions in a similar manner to streamline the process of qualifying and quantifying emissions offsets. This report examines approaches used by existing and evolving offset programs to facilitate offset project aggregation. It focuses on major existing offsets standards and aggregation approaches, including (i) the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism's (CDM) Programme of Activities (PoAs), (ii) the Verified Carbon Standard's (VCS) grouped projects, (iii) the Climate Action Reserve's (CAR) forestry protocol aggregation guidelines, (iv) the American Carbon Registry's (ACR) aggregation guidelines for forestry projects, (v) the Chicago Climate Exchange's (CCX) soil conservation protocol, and (vi) the Alberta Offset System's tillage systems protocol. The report also examines business models offset project developers have employed to replicate one project-type to streamline the process of generating offsets without the need to rely on a specific methodology for aggregation. The report also discusses options for sectoral crediting, an approach that seeks to reward specific economic sectors in specific regions if they exceed sectoral GHG emissions targets. Finally, key lessons learned are summarized. For more information, contact Adam Diamant, 510.260.9105, adiamant@epri.com.

The full report is available for download from EPRI's website at: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?Abstract_id=000000000001022180.

Richard Richels Appointed to National Research Council's (NRC) Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC)

Richard Richels has been appointed to the National Research Council's (NRC) Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC). BASC is the major program unit of the National Research Council responsible for organizing and overseeing studies on issues related to weather, climate, and the atmospheric sciences broadly. The Board maintains a critical overview of the fields under its purview so that it is aware of relevant work relating to policy formulation, technological assessment, research and development, and emerging issues. The Board is also responsible for planning new studies, conducting oversight on projects carried out by its subsidiary committees, and making an annual appraisal of accomplishments and potential new initiatives. BASC does not conduct research, but works to give research a broader impact on society, both in the United States and internationally.

EPRI Publshes New Report on the “Institutional Design and Resources Required to Develop a Federal Greenhouse Gas Offsets Program”

This EPRI report explores the institutional design of the world's largest existing GHG offsets program—the United Nations' Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)—and identifies lessons learned from the implementation of CDM that might help to inform the future development of a U.S. offsets program. Based on this experience, this EPRI report evaluates the governmental institutional requirements and resources needed to develop a large-scale national domestic U.S. GHG emissions offset program, and the potential institutional barriers that might limit the ability of the evolving carbon market to generate significant offset supplies in the U.S. Proposed alternative approaches to addressing these institutional barriers also are discussed. For more information, contact Adam Diamant, (510) 260-9105.


The full report is available for download from EPRI's website at: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?Abstract_id=000000000001023122.

Social Cost of Carbon Discussed at Science Conference

EPRI’s Steven Rose was an invited speaker at an organized session at the American Geophysical Union 2010 Fall Meeting, held in San Francisco on December 13–17. His presentation, The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC)—What Is It Good For? (U23C-03), considered the value and purpose of SCC estimates of avoided climate change impacts from three perspectives: the economic nature of the climate problem, potential application of the SCC, and finally appropriate application from a conceptual and practical point of view given the state of the art. SCC is the marginal cost of emitting one extra ton of carbon (as carbon dioxide) at any point in time, and the U.S. government is legally required to use a nonzero value in regulatory analyses and recently produced revised estimates. For more information, contact Steven Rose, (202) 293-6183.

EPRI Participates in Scenario Development Workshop

Steven Rose and Richard Richels were invited participants in the U.S. Department of Energy workshop, Scenarios for Assessing Our Climate Future: Issues and Methodological Perspectives for the U.S. National Climate Assessment, held in Arlington, VA on December 6–8. The workshop explored the types, definitions, and alternative uses of scenarios; their applications in previous assessments; and connections with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approach to scenarios. Suggestions were made for the types of scenarios and data development needed, engagement strategies, alternative ways of thinking about temporal and spatial scales, and the overall assessment process and use of scenarios in general. Ideas generated at the workshop will help the National Climate Assessment build credible scenarios for its 2013 report as well as for future assessments. For more information, contact Steven Rose, (202) 293-6183, or Richard Richels, (202) 293-7510.

Recent Papers based on EPRI Climate Change Research

Economic Impacts of Different Emissions Allowance Allocation Schemes

Rausch, S., et al. “Distributional Implications of Alternative U.S. Greenhouse Gas Control Measures”, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 2010, 10(2), article 1 (EPRI Product E233130). This paper analyzes the distributional and efficiency impacts of different greenhouse gas emissions allowance allocation schemes using a new dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy. The authors find for all legislative proposals studied that the allocation schemes are progressive over the lower half of the income distribution and proportional in the upper half of the income distribution. Contrary to previous research supporting the conclusion that energy taxes are regressive, carbon pricing by itself (ignoring the return of carbon revenues through allowance allocations) is proportional to modestly progressive. For more information, contact Geoff Blanford, (650) 855-2126.

Paper Explores Global Sharing of Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions

Jacoby, H.D., et al. “Sharing the Burden of GHG Reductions”, Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy: Implementing Architectures for Agreement. J.F. Aldy and R.N. Stavins, eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010, 753–785 (EPRI Product E233131). This paper describes a technique developed for estimating the allowance allocations to sixteen countries and regional groups in a global cap-and-trade system and the associated financial transfers necessary to achieve predetermined distributional outcomes of welfare costs. Different cases were studied for splitting allocations between developed and developing countries. The authors found that simple rules of allocation are incapable of dealing with the highly varying circumstances of different countries. They also found that the G8 countries’ proposed goal of a 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 is very ambitious and not achievable without universal participation and a complex web of unprecedented levels of financial transfers to the developing world. For more information, contact Geoff Blanford, (650) 855-2126.

Requirements for Using Large-Scale Biomass Energy Systems

Luckow, P., et al. “Large-scale utilization of biomass energy and carbon dioxide capture and storage in the transport and electricity sectors under stringent CO2 concentration limit scenarios”, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 2010, 4(5), 865–877 (EPRI Product E233133). This paper describes the required climate, energy, and land use policies needed to minimize unintended consequences associated with large-scale bioenergy production. The authors performed quantitative modeling of changes in the global energy system in response to climate policies using the global change assessment model developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The authors show that, given a climate policy in which terrestrial carbon is valued equally with carbon emitted from the energy system, biomass energy has the potential to be an important emissions control strategy. Despite the higher technology costs of carbon dioxide capture and storage, it is a very important tool in controlling the cost of meeting a target, by offsetting the venting of CO2 from sectors of the energy system that may be more expensive to mitigate, such as oil use in transportation. For more information, contact Geoff Blanford, (650) 855-2126.

Research Highlights Archive