A report
produced for the Southern
Governors' Association presents economy- and region-wide opportunities to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and evaluates their projected
potential financial costs or savings. Prepared by The
Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), the report was
commissioned as part of Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine's 2008-09
SGA Chairman's initiative that focused on engaging the region's
governors in a dialogue about how best to understand and address
climate change issues in the South.
Titled "Southern
Regional Economic Assessment of Climate Policy Options and Review of
Economic Studies of Climate Policy," the report also
contains a review and comparison of several dozen economic studies of
relevance to the South, including a framework explanation of why some
of these studies predict government action on climate will spur job
growth and positive economic benefits, while others predict job
losses and negative economic consequences.
"During my tenure, I started a conversation on climate change
and energy security that had not previously taken place in the
South," said Governor Kaine. "Climate change and energy
security policy decisions - whether they're made at the federal
level, state level, or both - have tremendous implications for the
region's future."
The report prepared for SGA relied heavily on data developed from
CCS' previous work with five Southern states (AR, FL, MD, NC, and SC) to help
each develop its own comprehensive, stakeholder-driven climate action
plan (all materials from those processes are linked in the left
sidebar). Data from those plans was updated and supplemented with
additional publicly available data to estimate the 16-state,
2-territory potential for emissions reductions and carbon
sequestration from 23 major possible policy options by 2020 (listed
below).
CCS President and CEO Tom Peterson noted, "This study offers an
important benchmark against which Southern Governors can measure the
potential costs and savings of what have been found to be very
effective policy options in some states. With this kind of
analysis in their pocket, each Governor can better identify the steps
that make the most immediate and cost effective impacts."
SGA Projected Gross GHG Emissions by Sector, 2005-2020
(Center for Climate Strategies, 2009)
SGA = Southern Governors' Association; MMtCO2e =
million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
The SGA region covers 16 states (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MD, MS, MO,
NC, OK, TN, TX, VA, and WV) as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S.
Virgin Islands. Taken as a whole it represents the world's third
largest economy, forty percent of the U.S. population and the
nation's largest energy producing region. Much of the South has
experienced rapid growth in the last decade.
23 Major SGA Climate Policy Options by Sector, GHG
Reduction Potential and Cost-Effectiveness in 2020
(Center
for Climate Strategies, 2009)
Marginal Cost Curve of SGA Policy Options, 2020
(Center
for Climate Strategies, 2009)
$/tCO2e
= dollars per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (reduce); TLU =
Transportation and Land Use; ES = Energy Supply; AFW = Agriculture,
Forestry and Waste Management; RCI = Residential, Commercial and
Industrial (fuel use); BAU = Business as Usual.
"Southern
Regional Economic Assessment of Climate Policy Options and Review of
Economic Studies of Climate Policy," is available at www.climatestrategies.us and www.southerngovernors.org, and was
funded by grants from the Merck Family Fund, the Mertz Gilmore
Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Turner Foundation.
