Date: February 1, 2013
Author(s): Juan Matute, Nathan Holmes
Abstract
In 2008, California adopted the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act (known as SB 375) in order to lower greenhouse gas emissions by reforming local land use and transportation policies that subsidize cars and suburban sprawl. Recent literature focuses on the need to measure the complete output of GHG emissions in local areas, but these efforts run the risk of falling short of state and federal targets for two reasons: (1) a lack of proper local forecasting tools and (2) the absence of an appropriate guide for implementing local measurement. This report remedies research shortcomings by offering a framework for measuring, evaluating, and forecasting the GHG effects of local policies.