The California Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report Monday on how well the state’s energy policies are working in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The analysis found that the state requirement that utilities continually increase the amount of renewable energy they provide has been a “significant” driver in curbing emissions.
The LAO, however, was not able to determine exact figures for how much the cut in emissions is attributable to state law versus other factors, and the agency cited as problematic a lack of specific research that evaluates California climate policy.
The LAO couldn’t find a robust, peer-reviewed study on the effect of the state’s clean energy requirement for utilities, called the renewables portfolio standard. Instead, the agency’s analysts developed their own estimate based on “back-of-the-envelope” calculations, said Ross Brown, a policy analyst for the LAO.
“In many cases, there’s not a lot of great information evaluating either the suite of policies or a specific policy,” Brown said. “We think that this is an important thing from a public policy perspective, as well as thinking about California as a leader for other jurisdictions.”
Due to the dearth of specific research, the LAO study had to rely heavily on a review of existing academic literature, as well as on data from state agencies and interviews with researchers.
