Obama green stimulus to cut US emissions by at least 61m tonnes

Obama green stimulus to cut US emissions by at least 61m tonnes

New research finds "Green New Deal" spending plan could have equivalent effect on cutting carbon emissions as taking 13 million cars off the road
Tom Young, BusinessGreen, 10 Feb 2009
Barack Obama

The proposed "Green New Deal" environmental measures proposed as part of President Obama's $800bn economic stimulus package will deliver minimum greenhouse gas emissions savings of 61 million tonnes a year – equivalent to taking 13 million cars off the road – and could result in far deeper emission cuts.

That is the conclusion of a new report from climate change consultants ICF International (ICFI), commissioned by Greenpeace, which aimed to measure the impact on US carbon emissions of the president's wide-ranging green spending plans.

The report concluded that the impact of many of the proposed measures on carbon emissions were too difficult to quantify, and as a result the ultimate long-term savings arising from the plan could be far higher.

The proposed spending, which is still being debated on Capitol Hill and is expected to be passed by the Senate later this week, breaks down into 18 key areas. But while they are all expected to result in net carbon emission reductions, ICFI was only able to quantify the savings that will arise from seven proposals.

The report says that much of the estimated saving will come from building efficiency measures, calculating that plans to provide $6.9bn in grants to support local government energy efficiency schemes will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20.1m tons a year, while proposals to invest $6.7bn in improving the efficiency of federal buildings, $6.2bn in "home weatherisation" and $2.5bn in domestic energy efficiency efforts should cut emissions by 17.5m, eight million, and 7.28m tonnes respectively.

Proposed energy efficiency grants and loans to schools and other government institutions worth $1.5bn should cut emissions by 4.6m tonnes, according to the report, while $500m of investment in industrial energy efficiency programmes designed to pilot combined heat and power technologies promises to cut emissions by up to a quarter of current levels for those firms involved.

Moreover, plans for up to $300m in rebates for consumers who buy energy efficient and smart appliances that carry the Energy Star label are estimated to deliver emissions savings of more than 100,000 tonnes a year.

However, speaking to news agency Reuters, Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, said that as the study focused only on those areas where carbon savings could be accurately quantified, the total savings were likely to be far higher.

ICFI concluded that there were too many variables attached to a raft of investment proposals designed to bolster clean technologies for it to accurately attach emission-savings figures.

For example, Obama's flagship plans to invest $11bn in rolling out smart grid technologies, provide $8bn in loan guarantees to renewable energy and transmission projects, and offer $2.4bn in funding to carbon capture and storage projects all have the potential to deliver huge emissions savings, but it is too early to estimate the precise scale of the savings and the timeline for their delivery.

Similarly, it is also difficult to quantify emissions cuts that will arise from a raft of projects to help cut transport emissions, such as the $2bn in loans to be offered to developers of advanced battery technologies; $600m earmarked for greening federal vehicles; $400m initiative for the government to purchase more fuel efficient buses and trucks; $300m in funding to help develop cleaner diesel technologies; and $200m to promote the adoption of electric vehicles and provide recharging infrastructure.