State Climate Action Planning:
Geography of Regional and National Climate and Renewable Energy Policy

Elizabeth Wilson, Principle Investigator and Associate Professor
Melisa Pollak, Project Manager and Research Fellow
Aaron Crowell, Research Assistant
Bryn Meyer, Research Assistant
Rebecca Pickens, Research Assistant
Joel Larson, Research Assistant

This year-long project examines how decisions about energy, the environment, and climate change are made at the state level by analyzing the climate action planning process. This research will provide important information about the role of the states in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

States will play a key role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions because: states are major greenhouse gas emitters; states control many of the actions needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as changes to building codes, electric power sources, and land use; and, a successful federal response to climate change can only be crafted with strong state support and implementation. Due to the geographic diversity across the U.S. the benefits and risks of any potential approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions depend on such things as a state’s energy system, economic structure, and socio-political circumstances. States may prefer different climate policy designs and different portfolios of greenhouse gas reduction tactics, designed to maximize their economic opportunities and minimize their particular risks. Understanding climate action planning at the state level provides a basis for more effective coordination between state, regional, and federal climate policy, and sheds some light on the compromises that will need to be made between diverse states to compose effective regional and national greenhouse gas reduction portfolios and deploy renewable energy technologies.

Climate Action Planning

Climate action planning is the process of identifying a portfolio of policies that could enable a state or other entity to reach a greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal, and thus reduce its contribution to global warming. As of November 2009, thirty-eight states had started the climate action planning process.[1] Several of these states have used the same consultant-led stakeholder process to develop their statewide climate action plans.[2] Because these states were using the same process, the climate action plans developed by these states represent a natural policy experiment and opportunity for analysis. This project analyzes the results of these state climate planning processes to reveal state-level preferences and practices, and highlight state-specific strategic behavior with regards to both energy technology preference and climate policy.

Methods & States Studied

Methods used in this project include: a comparative analysis of the recommended policies, a survey of the climate action planning process participants, an event history analysis of the factors that lead state governments to begin the climate action planning process, and detailed case studies of four states: Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina.

The comparative analysis and survey are based on twelve states that all used the same consultant-led stakeholder process to develop their statewide climate action plans:

Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, and South Carolina

The map below shows the states that have started climate action planning as of November 2009,[3] highlighting the states studied by the comparative and survey analyses, and showing the date the final climate action plan (CAP) reports were published:

The project compares the results of twelve state climate action plans, analyzing the composition of the portfolio of greenhouse gas reduction policies recommended by each state and the magnitude of the recommended reductions. To make the data fully comparable, the results of each state climate action plan are sorted into consistent categories, such as efficiency and conservation or reduced vehicle use. This approach is similar to the “wedge” concept, proposed by Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow in an article published in Science in 2004[4] and also described on the Princeton University Carbon Mitigation Initiative website. Preliminary results from the comparative analysis show that states are taking very different approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Emission reduction portfolios vary widely in terms of their reduction goals, types of strategies recommended, and level of reliance on those strategies.

Survey

An internet survey will gather information from the people who served on the climate action planning advisory groups in twelve states. The goal of the survey is to understand the factors that influenced the recommendations in the climate action plan. The climate action planning process participants included local government officials, non-profit leaders, business leaders, experts, and others important to the energy policy process in their state. These leaders will also be important in any future energy and climate policy development and implementation.

The survey has been developed to test ideas about technology adoption and policy implementation. Survey development incorporated feedback from early structured interviews with a small sample of climate action planning process participants. Results from the survey will help policy makers and planners better understand how the unique characteristics of each state influence plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This information is valuable in the effort to implement policies and technologies that help states move toward more efficient, low-carbon economies.

Case Studies

The case studies will provide more detailed analysis of state-level political, environmental, economic and other influences on climate policy choices in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina. The case study states were chosen because they have certain similar political characteristics and their economies have similar greenhouse gas intensities. Despite these similarities, the climate action plans proposed in these states differ greatly. Thus, the case studies in progress already provide compelling evidence for the importance of local influences on greenhouse gas reduction technology selection and policy decisions.

This project is sponsored by the University of Minnesota Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment. The award runs from July 2009 to June 2010.

[1] “Climate Action Plans.” Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Nov. 2009. Internet on-line. Accessed 11 Jan. 2010. Available here .
[2] “Climate Mitigation Actions.” The Center for Climate Strategies. Internet on-line. Accessed 11 Jan. 2010. Available here.
[3] “Climate Action Plans.” Pew Center on Global Climate Change.
[4] Pacala, S. and R. Socolow, “Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies,” Science Vol. 305. No. 5686, 13 August 2004, 968-972.