Forecasting Carbon Emissions in States of Hawaii, California, Colorado, and Florida; The Effects of States' Renewable Portfolio Standards

摘要

In this paper, we present four ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) models for forecasting the future trends in carbon emissions of four states in the United States: the three states of Hawaii, California, and Colorado whose RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) laws set the most ambitious renewable targets, and the State of Florida, which presently has now RPS. The State of Florida is used as a baseline for comparing the effects of RPS laws on emissions. For each of the three states of Hawaii, California, and Colorado we run simulations under two scenarios. In scenario 1, we forecast the carbon emissions through 2050 of these states based on available emission data from 1980 through 2014, which include data for the years following the enactment of their RPS laws. In scenarios 2, we assume that no RPS laws were ever enacted in these states and use the emission data from 1980 to the year the RPS laws were enacted and forecast their carbon emissions through 2050. The results of the two scenarios are discussed in relation to the effectiveness of the RPS laws on emission reduction for these states.