On June 3, we posted an analysis of the Obama Administration’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution—or INDC—it submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Obama Administration pledged that the United States will slash its net greenhouse gas emissions 28% below the 2005 level by 2025.
Based on announced administration policies to date, we calculated that about one-third of the 1,790 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents needed to meet the 28% goal were still unexplained.
Since then, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced its Clean Power Plan final rule. EPA’s analysis of the final rule yields results that are quite a bit different from those that came out of the analysis conducted by the Energy Information Administration on the proposed rule, which was included in our original INDC analysis. Also since June 3, EPA announced its Protection of Stratospheric Ozone: Change of Listing Status for Certain Substitutes final rule that included an estimate of hydrofluorocarbon emission reductions.
To take these new announcements into account, we’ve updated our INDC analysis. It’s posted here, but the headline results are these: Instead of just one-third of the 28% emissions goal unaccounted for, it now appears that, after making adjustments for these updated policies, 45% percent—or 800 million metric tons of the carbon dioxide equivalents—of the goal remains elusive. The primary reason for the widening gap is that our initial estimates for emission reductions from EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan and Stratospheric Ozone rule were, ahem, optimistic.
How the administration plans to fill this gap is anyone’s guess. Stayed tuned.