Meeting America's Kyoto Protocol Target: Policies and Impacts

摘要

This paper examines ten major national policies that would increase energy efficiency, accelerate the adoption of renewable energy technologies, and shift to the use of less carbon-intensive fossil fuels in order to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. We estimate that the ten policies would cut carbon emissions about 28 percent by 2010 and 55 percent by 2020, relative to emissions if current policies and trends continue. While this is not quite enough to reach our Kyoto Protocol target, it is very close. While a few of the policies have a net positive cost, most result in energy bill savings exceeding investment and implementation costs. Overall, we estimate that consumers and businesses would realize net savings of about