Progress thus far in implementing the Global Warming Solutions Act
The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2008 (GWSA) is arguably the cornerstone of Massachusetts climate policy, as it legally requires the Commonwealth to reduce GHG emissions by 80% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels. This post provides a brief history of the planning and policy implementation that has occurred through the GWSA over the last decade.
The Massachusetts 2010 and 2015 Clean Energy and Climate Plans
The GWSA was signed into law in August of 2008 during the “greenest session in the history of the Massachusetts state legislature.” The law gave the state government discretion in setting a 2020 emissions reduction target between 10% and 25% below 1990 levels. After an extensive two-year stakeholder planning process, at the end of December 2010 the Patrick Administration chose the highest allowable target of 25% emission reductions.
The official announcement of the 25% target was accompanied by the Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020 (the 2010 CECP). This document contained a lengthy list of policy interventions for 2011–2020, which were expected to result in emission reductions of 27% relative to 1990.
The 2010 Clean Energy and Climate Plan set a precedent for GWSA emission reductions planning by grouping policy interventions into four categories:
· Buildings, which covers emissions resulting from energy consumed within the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in Massachusetts. Interventions within buildings generally relate to energy efficiency, which reduces the amount of electricity or natural gas / heating oil consumed.
· Electricity, which covers emissions resulting from electricity generated within Massachusetts or generation that is then imported into the state. Interventions generally focus on reducing the carbon content of fuels through switching sources (coal to natural gas) or by increasing renewable generation.
· Transportation, which covers emissions resulting from the combustion of oil or another fuel through the use of vehicles. Interventions include reducing the amount of driving (less “vehicle miles traveled” in transportation lingo), shifting people to a less carbon intensive option like biking or public transit (“mode shifting”), or greater fuel efficiency (higher miles per gallon).
· Non-energy or “other”, which includes all non-CO2 emissions from natural gas systems, industrial processes, agriculture, and waste. There are many interventions in this category, including reducing methane leaks from gas pipelines, HFC leaks from refrigerators, and SF6 leaks from transformers.
In late 2015, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs released the 2015 update to the Clean Energy and Climate Plan. The numbers changed slightly from the original plan, with greater reductions coming from electricity generation (because of closing coal plants and the rapid switch to natural gas generation) and less coming from energy efficiency (with cleaner electricity, each MWh saved ends up reducing less emissions). The table below shows the emission reductions expected as part of the 2015 CECP.
Interestingly, many of the policies listed in both the 2010 and 2015 CECP documents are not enabled through policy imposed by the GWSA directly. “Appliance and product standards” and “Fuel Efficiency Standards” are both federal energy efficiency programs, and emission reductions from “coal-fired power plant retirements” happened mainly because of market forces. Other policies were under Massachusetts control but were not well-defined, such as “develop a mature market for renewable thermal technologies” and the “GreenDOT” policy initiative. The policies that were most defined, such as “All Cost Effective Energy Efficiency” and the “Renewable Portfolio Standard,” were specifically designed through the Green Communities Act of 2008.
A Lawsuit leads to new regulations under GWSA section 3(d)
The 2010 CECP projected that Massachusetts would reduce emissions by more than the 25% GWSA target through its collection of policies. However, the 2013 GWSA progress report was less optimistic. Out of the 23.7 MMT of total emission reductions needed to reach the 25% target, the report identified 6.7 MMT of “potential GHG reductions” that were “either in very early stages of planning or have not yet been implemented.” This gap, shown as the grey bar in the graphic below, came largely from lower than expected emission reductions from policies targeting the transportation sector.
Climate advocates were hopeful that the 2015 CECP update would help make up for the gaps identified in the 2013 progress report. But when the 2015 update lacked new regulations, advocates grew frustrated. Shortly after the 2015 CECP update was released, a collection of environmental organizations dubbed the “Global Warming Solutions Project” released a scorecard of the plan declaring that “Massachusetts Will Not Meet its 2020 GHG Reduction Requirement Without Urgent Action by the Baker Administration.”
Advocates also pursued legal strategies to enable greater GHG emission reductions through new regulations. They believed that a key legal lever existed in section 3(d) of the Global Warming Solutions Act, which reads:
(d) The department shall promulgate regulations establishing a desired level of declining annual aggregate emission limits for sources or categories of sources that emit greenhouse gas emissions.
In November 2014, the Conservation Law Foundation sponsored a group of four Massachusetts teenagers to sue the Commonwealth for not issuing regulations under section 3(d) of the GWSA. In May of 2016 the teenagers won the case. According to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court,
“the plain language of [section 3(d) of] the statute requires the department to promulgate regulations that address multiple sources or categories of sources of greenhouse gas emissions, impose a limit on such emissions that may be released, limit the aggregate greenhouse gas emissions that are released from each group of regulated sources or categories of sources, set greenhouse gas emissions limits for each year, and set limits that decline on an annual basis.”
The Baker Administration followed the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling by issuing Executive Order 569 to establish “an integrated climate change strategy for the Commonwealth.” The order requires Massachusetts to develop a comprehensive energy plan and statewide climate adaptation plan, both of which are due by September 2018. The order also empowers the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to work with other Northeastern state transportation agencies to develop a regional plan to reduce transportation sector emissions. Finally, the order responded to the SJC ruling by initiating a process to establish new regulations under 3(d).
Unfortunately, the 3(d) regulations do not appear likely to have a large change on the final 2020 target. Summed together, the new and amended regulations account for only 0.07% of the total 25% reduction required.
The new 3(d) regulations do have longer-term implications for emission reductions in the electricity sector. The “clean energy standard” requires all electricity suppliers to procure 80% of their energy from carbon-free sources by 2050, and the “generator emissions limits” creates a declining cap for emissions of in-state electricity generation from 8.7 MMT in 2020 to just 2.2 MMT in 2050. But for 2020, these regulations for the electricity sector do not reduce any additional emissions compared to what was already expected through increased renewable energy procurement and improved efficiency.
Will Massachusetts meet its GWSA goal of 25% reductions by 2020?
As of March 2018, it is unclear whether Massachusetts will meet its legally-mandated target of 25% reductions by 2020. The Commonwealth will succeed if the amount of miles driven and amount of heating and cooling used in buildings remain at roughly the same levels as 2013. If that happens, the efficiency policies for vehicles and buildings should be enough to reduce emissions to the required 72 MMT. However, emissions from both of these sectors are highly dependent on factors outside of direct control of Massachusetts. Driving tends to increase with lower gas prices and greater convenience (such as more people traveling by ride sharing apps like Uber), and heating and cooling increases with more extreme weather. These external variables explain the ups and downs seen in the emissions graph below.
Another difficulty in projecting total greenhouse emissions for 2020 is a roughly three year delay in obtaining emissions data. The latest complete year of emissions data available from the Massachusetts DEP is for 2014, with “partial” data available for 2015 and 2016. Many factors contribute to this lag in reporting: complicated renewable energy credit transactions, difficult emissions calculations for refrigerant leakage, and a limited staff capacity within state agencies. But without a significant change in reporting methodology, it is likely that we will not know for certain whether Massachusetts met its 2020 emission reductions target until 2023 or 2024.
What would happen if Massachusetts failed to meets its legal mandate of a 25% reduction in GHG emissions? There is no existing precedent, as the 2020 goal is the first target ever created under the Global Warming Solutions Act. Failing to meet the target would likely result in further litigation and perhaps new mandates for additional regulation. And perhaps a GWSA failure in 2020 would spur new legislative policy to enable Massachusetts to make greater progress in particularly challenging sectors like transportation.
Regardless of the 2020 outcome, the long-term requirement of 80% GHG reductions by 2050 will remain. Hopefully the lessons learned from the past decade will be used for future policy development. In my next post, I’ll outline the next round of GWSA planning for reducing emissions from 2021 to 2030.
