State-Led Climate Initiatives: A Pathway to Significant Emission Reductions
As the federal government remains hesitant to implement a robust climate strategy, a recent study highlights the potential of state-led initiatives to markedly decrease carbon emissions and combat climate change.
Research indicates that while state-driven efforts might incur slightly higher costs compared to a unified national approach, they could lead to the adoption of diverse decarbonization technologies.
“Given that there is little expectation the Trump administration will promote a national effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change, we think there is significant value in assessing what kind of difference state-led efforts could make,” explains Jeremiah Johnson, the study’s corresponding author and an associate professor at North Carolina State University.
Johnson and his team analyzed a coalition of 23 states, identified through political and policy indicators, as likely candidates for joint carbon reduction initiatives.
The study assessed the financial implications, preferred decarbonization technologies, and potential carbon footprint reductions, comparing these to a collective federal strategy.
Utilizing publicly available data from the entire energy system across the 48 contiguous states—covering power generation, transportation, building operations, and consumer needs—the researchers modified existing decarbonization models to evaluate state-specific impacts.
“We first looked at what the costs and technologies would be if the 23 states that already seemed inclined to strive for net zero carbon emissions actually achieved it,” says Gavin Mouat, the paper’s first author and a former graduate student at NC State.
The study concluded that achieving a 46% reduction in U.S. carbon emissions by 2050 through state efforts was financially comparable to a federal approach, with only a 0.7% cost difference. However, the technological routes differed significantly.
“That’s because different states have different resources,” Johnson notes. “For example, some Great Plains states are excellent locations for establishing wind farms but are less likely to participate in a state-led initiative to address climate change.”
In state-led scenarios, industrial decarbonization, including cleaner manufacturing practices, was more prominent, whereas federal strategies leaned towards clean energy production, such as wind and solar power.
The study also found that state-led actions could influence climate-related pollution in neighboring states, potentially increasing or reducing emissions based on economic or energy exchange dynamics.
“Essentially, our model suggests it is possible that non-participating states could increase greenhouse gas emissions, because they might produce a product or service more cheaply for export to those states working to reduce their emissions,” Johnson explains.
On the flip side, non-participating states might reduce emissions due to energy savings from clean technologies or by utilizing cleaner power from other states.
“Ultimately the most important takeaway here is that state-led action can achieve substantial emission reductions, even without federal support, but that the world looks very different than one where there is federal coordination,” Johnson observes.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, includes contributions from researchers at NC State and Carnegie Mellon University and was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Source: North Carolina State University
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