Search Climate Insights Directory

Energy Innovation presents a set of 15 targeted policies across economy-wide, industrial, transportation, power, building, and land-use sectors. These policies, modeled via the Energy Policy Simulator, aim to reduce emissions and save the U.S. approximately $840 billion between 2016 and 2030 while positioning the country as a leader in clean energy technology.

The document provides a comprehensive overview of 'green jobs' in the U.S. and internationally, highlighting the impact of energy efficiency and renewable energy on employment. It notes a significant gap in reliable U.S. data following the elimination of the BLS Green Careers program. Key findings include the dominance of solar and wind in global renewable energy employment, with China as the largest employer, and the high job-creation potential of energy efficiency investments in buildings and transportation.

The report argues that cities can significantly reduce global GHG emissions, potentially decreasing them by 3.7 GtCO2e by 2030 and 8.0 GtCO2e by 2050. The greatest abatement opportunities are found in urban building energy efficiency, followed by transport and waste management. Because city-level actions are often not captured in national pledges, they offer a critical path for countries to deepen their climate ambition.

The report analyzes building energy efficiency across China, Germany, and the United States, identifying four primary policy intervention points: new construction, building retrofits, equipment, and operations. It highlights how different national contexts—such as China's rapid urbanization, Germany's aging building stock, and the U.S.'s high per capita energy use—necessitate distinct policy priorities. The document details specific barriers to efficiency, such as split incentives and high upfront costs, and reviews the current policy landscapes and research efforts of the Climate Policy Initiative in these regions.

The research paper develops a methodology for scenario analysis of consumption-based GHG emissions, moving beyond traditional production-based accounting. It introduces a framework using a modified Kaya Identity to forecast emissions by analyzing population, consumption activity, and GHG intensity. The authors provide a catalogue of low-GHG behavioral measures across food, goods, services, construction, transport, and home energy. Piloting the method in Seattle and the U.S., the study finds that while aggressive behavioral shifts and production improvements can reduce consumption-based emissions by 47% by 2030, the resulting levels remain significantly above the global average required to limit warming to 2°C.

The guide outlines ten strategies for building energy efficiency, emphasizing a 'bottom-up' approach to energy needs, retro-commissioning, and sealing air and duct leaks. It suggests utilizing daylighting, advanced lighting and HVAC controls, and retrofit window films to reduce consumption. The author also recommends pursuing energy efficiency financing like PACE, incorporating shading devices or green roofs, and addressing human behavior, which can influence energy consumption by 12-17%.

The study finds that while awareness of EPCs is high, they play a limited role in German home purchasing decisions due to low availability, a lack of trust, and a failure to provide the financial information purchasers value most.

The report analyzes Green Investment Schemes (GIS) as a hybrid carbon finance mechanism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) that 'greens' surplus Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) by earmarking sales revenues for domestic climate mitigation. It argues that GIS can overcome the failures of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI)—particularly in energy efficiency and small-scale projects—by utilizing more flexible, programmatic architectures and simplified monitoring and verification (M&V). The report identifies the thermal retrofitting of old building stock as a high-priority target area due to its long-term climate impact and significant social co-benefits. It provides specific architectural recommendations, such as the use of sectoral baselines, post-2012 crediting periods, and the dominance of 'hard greening' to ensure environmental integrity.

The report identifies that the Leeds City Region must reduce housing-related CO2e emissions by 38 million tonnes by 2026 to align with national 2050 targets. The most impactful measure is the major retrofit of existing homes, which could provide 53.2% of the required reduction. Other essential measures include behavioural change (22%), low and zero carbon technologies (12.4%), and stricter new build standards (9%). The study concludes that a combination of these measures, supplemented by either external wall insulation, additional LZC installations, or selective demolition and rebuild of inefficient properties, is necessary to meet the target.

The document argues that the EU's 2030 framework must combine price-based instruments with structural and behavioural policies to drive decarbonisation. It suggests reforming the EU ETS to better signal long-term scarcity and phase out coal, introducing new auctioning and project-based mechanisms for non-ETS sectors to ensure liquidity and transformation resources, and establishing a streamlined governance mechanism for Member State coordination through national decarbonisation plans.

The report argues that the EU's energy security, particularly regarding natural gas, cannot be solved by a 'magic bullet' but requires a combined approach of supply-side and demand-side measures. While LNG and internal market infrastructure reduce vulnerability to supply disruptions, demand-side actions like energy efficiency and renewables are essential to reduce the overall cost of imports and long-term dependency. The analysis highlights that Central and Eastern European Member States remain particularly vulnerable to Russian supply cuts, but that decarbonization goals in the power sector do not necessarily conflict with gas security due to the sector's fuel-switching capabilities. The report concludes that the EU should set ambitious, quantifiable energy efficiency and renewable targets to reinforce its strategic resilience.

The document advocates for a four-step life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) process—establishing a baseline, defining energy efficiency measures (EEMs), calculating financial metrics, and bundling measures—to avoid the sub-optimal design choices often resulting from simple payback analysis. It demonstrates through a fictional chiller replacement example and a real-world 20,000 square-foot retail store retrofit that LCCA can reveal positive net present value (NPV) and higher internal rates of return (IRR) by accounting for avoided business-as-usual costs and synergistic effects. The authors conclude that while LCCA requires more effort in data collection and modeling, the potential for significant energy cost savings and carbon emission reductions makes it worth the investment.

The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) proposes a comprehensive federal strategy to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and oil use by approximately 50% by 2020. The framework prioritizes reducing energy demand through efficiency in buildings, transport, and industry before substituting supply with renewables and biofuels. Key recommendations include implementing 'feebates' for vehicles, establishing a 'Smart Grid', and creating a national 'energy corps' for workforce training. RMI argues that climate protection is profitable and that the U.S. should move toward a system where all energy production and saving methods compete fairly without distorting subsidies.

The report uses the Resources and Energy Analysis Programme (REAP) to model 15 housing policy scenarios for the Leeds City Region between 2003 and 2026. It finds that a 'business as usual' approach based on the draft Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) would lead to an 8% increase in CO2 emissions from housing by 2026. Retrofitting existing housing stock is identified as the most effective single measure for reducing emissions, with potential net savings between 19% and 39% compared to the baseline. The most significant reductions are achieved through combined scenarios involving energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy targets, and increased demolition rates, which can save up to 43 mt of CO2.