Suggested Citation:
Morrison, Geoffrey M., Anthony R. Eggert, Sonia Yeh, Raphael Isaac, Christina Zapata (2014) Summary of California Climate Policy Modeling Forum. Social Science Research Network (http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2401929)

California is a leader in developing and implementing policies that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improve air quality, and encourage efficient use of energy and other resources. At the same time policymakers are often limited in their access to transparent and high-quality technical and economic models that can help them evaluate plausible future scenarios and assess environmental and economic impacts of current or proposed policy targets and policy instruments.

On December 16-17, the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy and the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways (NextSTEPS), both of UC Davis, hosted a forum as part of the California Climate Policy Modeling (CCPM) project. The CCPM is an ongoing project to bring together policy makers, modeling groups, and key stakeholders in the state to:

• Improve the state of knowledge of plausible pathways/scenarios for future technology adoption, energy use, air quality, and GHG emissions.
• Identify plausible mid-point goals and/or targets for GHG emissions between 2020 and 2050.
• Discuss policy options needed for meeting the state’s climate and air quality goals, identify policy gaps, and improve existing policies.
• Improve the state of modeling, including identifying ways to make the models and model findings more useful and accessible to policy-makers and other stakeholders.

This document is a brief summary of the primary model findings and insights discussed at the December 2013 forum.

Keywords: energy modeling, climate policies, energy policies, model comparison, carbon reduction