THE NET-ZERO BLOG
Climate policy analysis and updates from Sacramento
Final Scoping Plan identifies key role for carbon dioxide removal
Today, the California Air Resources Board released its proposed 2022 Final Scoping Plan, providing a roadmap for how the state can achieve net-zero emissions by 2045. The Plan identifies a key role for technological carbon dioxide removal, including direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.
California advances toward climate goals: carbon capture and storage
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified that technologies that capture, transport and store carbon dioxide are essential for achieving net-zero emissions targets. SB 905 (Caballero; Skinner) establishes a comprehensive framework to deploy carbon capture and storage in California. In this blog post, we review SB 905 and describe how capturing CO2 from industrial and bioenergy point sources as well as directly from the air can help California achieve its climate goals. This blog post is the final instalment of our three-part review of California’s 2022 legislative session on climate and clean energy.
California advances toward climate goals: permit streamlining
To achieve net-zero emissions by 2045, the sheer volume of new clean energy projects that must be planned, permitted, built and commissioned in only 23 years is unprecedented. AB 205 – a 2022 budget trailer bill passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor – establishes a number of landmark siting and permitting reforms to reduce lead times and incentivize an increase in clean energy deployment. In this blog post, we review AB 205 and provide context for California’s net-zero challenge. This blog post is the second of a three-part series that reviews key outcomes from California’s 2022 legislative session on climate and clean energy.
California advances toward climate goals: the $39 billion budget
The Legislature and Governor Newsom recently delivered a game-changing $39 billion climate budget and an important set of new policies to propel California towards its climate goals. In this blog post – the first of a three-part series – we review the central piece to the state’s recent actions: the $39 billion climate budget.
Op-ed: Maximizing the impact of a history-making federal clean energy investment program
Op-ed announcement: A recent op-ed in The Hill describes a novel approach to identifying and prioritizing policy and investment actions in order to achieve ambitious climate targets.
Publication: Defining the value of carbon capture, utilization and storage for a low-carbon future
Carbon capture, utilization and storage is identified in a number of integrated assessment models (IAMs) as an available mitigation option to support the global energy transition. Despite this, there continues to be dissent and misinformation in some quarters regarding the role CCUS can or should play in a low-carbon future. This publication from the International Energy Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Technology Collaboration Programme, reviews recent literature from sector-specific techno-economic models, global and regional IAMs, and social studies to assess the value of CCUS. This publication also introduces a decision framework to help policymakers screen the relative competitiveness of CCUS and applies this framework across case studies in the US, UK, Indonesia, Australia and Japan.