The Great Recession or progressive energy policies? Explaining the decline in US greenhouse gas emissions forecasts

Abstract

This paper evaluates the causes of the 23% decline in 2030 US greenhouse gas emissions forecasts between 2007 and 2011. Dynamic regression modeling predicts that the Great Recession contributed to about 67% of the 2008–2009 emissions decline, but then fell to about an 18% share for the 2030 emissions forecast. An analysis of electricity generation forecasts show that switching from coal to gas contributed only 6% to the total 2030 decline. In contrast, regulatory impact assessments and policy analysis showed that state and federal policies were responsible for 46% of the 2030 decline in emissions.

Keywords:

• regulatory impact analysis
• economic growth
• greenhouse gas emissions
• energy forecasting
• United States

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Hillard Huntington at the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum for his helpful review of this analysis, as well as Constantine Boussalis and Travis Coan with the Harvard Law School Empirical Research Services for their review of the econometric analyses presented herein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Note

Notes

1. A Kaya identity regression model based on Raupach et al. (2007) was also fitted that used GDP, energy intensity (primary energy demand/GDP), and GHG intensity (GHGs/primary energy supply) to predict GHG emissions. The regression results were not stable due to colinearity (high correlation) between the energy intensity and GDP variables.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Center for Climate Strategies.