Home

Calculations of Emission Reduction Targets of the 2009 US Climate Bill (ACESA)

The American Clean Energy & Security Act of 2009 (ACESA, aka. Waxman-Markey) places two emissions caps: one on non-HFC (hydroflurocarbon) greenhouse gases (GHGs), the other on HFCs.

By 2020, the cap is to reduce non-HFC GHG emissions, in sectors covering 85% of US 2005 emissions, to 17% below 2005 levels, while HFCs , representing 1.7% of US 2005 emissions, are to be reduced 33% below 2005 levels under the separate HFC cap, so that total GHG emissions are to be reduced 15% below 2005 levels under the two caps combined.  This translates to 1.4% below 1990 levels in 2020 (see calculations below).  All this is not considering the cheap offset credits available for purchase in lieu of actual reductions, and the HFC cap requirements can be satisfied with offsets from other sources just like the non-HFC cap can.  The complementary requirements, including emission performance standards for uncapped sources and required components of the supplemental reduction program through 2025, appears to bring another 16% reduction relative to 1990 levels, but the reliability of these is unclear, and since uncapped sources such as agriculture and forestry is already planned as source for offset credits (which are to be in huge quantities, 7x more than the annual volume that Kyoto's faulty mechanism approves, each year), I don't know how the reductions achieved through these performance standards are supposed to be real and not double counted.

See more detailed discussions about ACESA, see my previous blogs here and here.

According to Table ES-2, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 – 2006, Published April 15, 2008:

2005 US HFCs:  121.4 (Tg CO2 Eq)
2005 US total GHG emissions:  7129.9 (Tg CO2 Eq)
1990 US total GHG emissions:  6148.3 (Tg CO2 Eq)

Therefore,

HFC emissions as a fraction of total 2005 emissions:

121.4/7129.9 = 1.7%

Total US emissions in 2020 under the two caps:

7129.9*85%*(1-17%) + 121.4*(1-33%) + 7129.9*(1-85%-1.7%) = 5030.1 + 81.3 + 948.3 = 6059.7

Relative reduction from 2005 levels in 2020 using the two caps:

(7129.9-6059.7)/7129.9 = 15%

Relative reduction from 1990 levels in 2020 using the two caps:

(6148.3-6059.7)/6148.3 = 1.4%

The above conclusions are confirmed by World Resources Institute analysis (WRI is in the notorious US-CAP, so they have no reason to belittle ACESA targets.)