Climate Change and Energy Conservation Research Concepts

This page last reviewed January 19, 2011

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California’s legislative policy and executive orders have established significant energy and environmental initiatives related to climate change. The state is widely recognized for innovations in the utility sector and building efficiency. For example, Executive Order S-20-04 related to state building energy efficiency requires 20% reductions in grid-based electricity purchases for state-owned buildings by 2015. More recently, SB 1368 (Perata, 2006) mandated a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions portfolio standard for baseload electricity generation.

Identification and implementation of cost-effective and feasible actions to meet ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets for California continue to be among the ARB’s highest priorities. The targets were set by the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Assembly Bill 32), which calls for rolling back the state’s emissions to a 1990 baseline by the year 2020. To meet the challenge, the State is undertaking landmark initiatives in renewable energy, energy efficiency, high-speed rail, low carbon transportation fuels and vehicles, a cap-and-trade program, and other steps. These initiatives are viewed as enabling the State’s 80 in 50 vision: a future in which emissions fall 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. It is widely recognized that such reductions will require, in addition to technological innovation, changes in land use as well as personal and institutional behaviors. Not all impacts can be avoided. Thus, the State is also building a plan to guide adaptation to climate and environmental change. The California Climate Change Research Center, administered by the California Energy Commission (CEC), has been researching climate change for more than a decade. This solicitation is issued for research that complements or expands previous and ongoing work. The intent of ARB-supported research should be to facilitate continued progress towards achieving and maintaining our GHG reduction goals.

California’s continued leadership in climate and energy policy will require that it go beyond incremental gains in energy efficiency and achieve reduction of aggregate energy-related emissions, that it implement land use strategies to reduce transportation-related emissions, and that it conserve as well as decarbonize its electricity resources. The State also requires further development and evaluation of carbon sequestration, policy options related to short-lived climate pollutants, further reductions from high global warming potential GHGs, and voluntary strategies in the residential and building sectors.

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• SB 375 (Steinberg), Sustainable Communities Strategy (2008). Requires regional planning to incorporate land-use and related strategies to reduce GHG emissions from automobiles and light trucks.
• SB 97 (Dutton), California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA): Greenhouse gas emissions (2007). Incorporates guidelines for GHG emissions impacts into CEQA.
• AB 32 (Nuñez), California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 baseline by 2020.
• SB 1368 (Perata), Electricity: emissions of greenhouse gases (2006). Establish greenhouse gas emission performance standard for baseload generation.
• AB 1925 (Blakeslee), Carbon sequestration (2006). Identify technical readiness and barriers to geologic carbon sequestration.
• AB 1493 (Pavley), Vehicular emissions: greenhouse gases (2002). Regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks, incentivizing earlier actions through the California Climate Action Registry.
• Executive Order S-3-05 establishing greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets.
• S-20-04, State building energy conservation. Requires reductions in electricity purchases for state-owned buildings.
• SB 1771 (Sher), Greenhouse gas emission reductions: climate change (2000). Establishes the California Climate Action Registry as a nonprofit that records and registers voluntary emissions reductions
• AB 1440 (Sher), Statewide emissions inventory and climate study (1988). Directed CEC to assess global warming impacts on California’s energy supply and demand, economy, environment, agriculture, and water supplies; to recommend measures for avoiding, reducing, and addressing impacts; and to develop a statewide GHG inventory.

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• Land use: City and county planners need better information on how to build desirable residences that reduce occupants’ transportation needs. In most cases this will mean developing mixed-use neighborhoods, but effective strategies can also include advances in technology that allows residents to accomplish many tasks from the home.
• GHG Emissions Inventory: Further advances and refinements of the statewide GHG emission inventories. This effort is to include the identification, characterization, and evaluation of inventory methods, uncertainties, and the sensitivity of the methods to inputs.
• Carbon sequestration: A recent state-convened expert Panel recommended that ARB recognize carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as a climate change mitigation tool. Additionally, studies have indicated that CCS could be critical in meeting the state’s long term climate and energy goals. Research areas that could inform ARB’s understanding of CCS and its role include: evaluation of the practical applicability of CCS in California; characterization of environmental risks surrounding CCS, particularly those specific to California, investigation of CCS-specific greenhouse gas and other air pollution emissions inventory methodologies; and, in general, studies that help the State better understand the role of CCS in reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the long term, as well as the implications for large-scale deployment of CCS in the State.
• Built environment: A large portion of the State’s energy consumption is associated with the built environment, for example, electricity and natural gas usage in buildings as well as transportation patterns incurred by land-use decisions. Forward-thinking research investigating this sector will help ARB lighten the energy demand and the carbon footprint of California’s built environment, where decisions made today will impact emissions for decades to come.
• Voluntary emissions reductions strategies: As articulated in the AB 32 Scoping Plan, the State’s success in meeting its climate goals will depend in part on voluntary emissions reductions. Identification and characterization of potential GHG emission reduction strategies will help provide Californians with the resources they need to reduce their GHG emissions through cost-effective and substantive voluntary efforts.
• Short-lived pollutants: Technical and policy analysis of climate impacts and cost-effective abatement options for greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide and for non-Kyoto GHGs such as methane, black carbon, and ozone precursors.
• High global warming potential GHGs: Gases with high global warming potential continue to be used as refrigerants and blowing agents; these high global warming potential GHGs constitute an ever greater fraction of the overall GHG inventory. Further research is needed to achieve additional reductions from this sector beyond the regulations put in place to meet the 2020 target.

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Proponents should visit ARB’s on-line research concept submission site to submit concepts by February 28, 2011.

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ARB's Climate Change Page