Evaluation of Initial Climate Policies by Resources for the Future in Carbon Scoring Project

Assessing Emissions in the Economy

The Carbon Scoring Project has a mission to evaluate emissions across various sectors of the economy, encompassing both energy-related emissions like burning fossil fuels and non-energy emissions such as those from land use changes. The focus of our initial carbon score is on energy-related emissions from the top four polluting sectors in the US economy: power, industry, transportation, and buildings.

Using In-House Models

To project emissions from the power and transportation sectors, we utilize RFF’s internal models. Specifically, we employ the Haiku model for simulating changes in power generation and the Vehicle Market Model for forecasting household purchases of light-duty vehicles. Our projections for emissions in the buildings, industrial, and transportation sectors (excluding emissions from light-duty vehicles) are based on data from the Annual Energy Outlook 2023 report by the US Energy Information Administration. This allows us to consider the impact of recent policies such as the Inflation Reduction Act and increased electricity demand due to electrification in these sectors. Furthermore, we evaluate the health implications of reduced air pollution from the power sector using the Estimating Air Pollution Social Impact Using Regression model developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Data Transparency and Accessibility

For all scenarios we analyze, you can access the results through the interactive data tool on the Carbon Scoring Project website, demonstrating our commitment to transparency. The source code for the Haiku model is openly accessible, and we are actively working to make the datasets supporting our models publicly available for forthcoming carbon scoring assessments.

What Comes Next?