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Many US cities are addressing climate change by setting goals to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by a specified amount within a specified time period. In order to achieve these goals, reducing emissions from existing buildings is crucial. Many cities are passing legislation to target existing buildings through benchmarking, auditing, retuning, or energy or emissions performance standards. As cities design legislation, they must consider the timing of the policies, how to prioritize building types and sizes, and how these design decisions will impact the city's emissions. This paper addresses these questions for one particular US city: Seattle, Washington. A model of Seattle's building stock was created with benchmarking and tax assessor data. It was then used to predict GHG emissions reductions due to different policy implementations for existing commercial and multifamily buildings. Key findings are: (1) the proposed emissions policy is expected to reduce cumulative emissions from buildings by 19% between 2020 and 2050; (2) delaying the implementation of the policy by five years could limit savings to 12%; and (3) including smaller buildings in the policy could increase savings to 34%. The lessons learned and how this can be used by other cities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The best available science calls for immediate reductions in global methane emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Recent studies indicate that the North American fracking boom is a major cause of atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas which began rising rapidly in the late 2000s. Natural gas has been widely promoted as a "bridge fuel," but it only has climate benefits over coal if fugitive methane emissions throughout the production cycle are minimal. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has addressed these emissions through New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) set under the Clean Air Act. However, the existing standards have not reduced methane emissions to the point that natural gas presents any climate benefits, and the Trump Administration has proposed to weaken them further. In the face of uncertainty about the continued use of NSPS to reduce methane and other greenhouse gases, this Article outlines two alternative legal pathways for continuing to regulate and minimize fugitive emissions from the oil and gas sector. The Article advocates first for expanding NSPS regulation beyond new and modified sources to also apply to existing sources. Second, if the current NSPS is successfully rolled back, it advocates alternatively for petitioning the EPA to regulate methane through the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2007 was settled the first minimum energy performance standards for air conditioners in Brazil. After more than 14 years since the first regulations and looking upon future perspectives, this paper presents a review of regulatory developments in the country and an assessment based on scenario simulation to verify potential impacts of new minimum energy performance standards for air conditioners. The methodology employed is a bottom-up approach designed to estimate the energy consumption of air conditioners. A spreadsheet-based computational tool was developed to perform sensitivity analysis of key parameters such as ownership rate, average temperature and cooling degree days. The results show a significant energy savings potential that could be captured through a minimum energy performance standards revision. For the scenarios simulated these savings potential would reach up to 417 TWh, with respective greenhouse gases emissions reduction that would be 249 million tons, over the period from 2023 to 2040. An economic analysis of minimum energy performance standards impact is also provided and indicate that even in conditions that involve higher costs and discount rates, new more restrictive minimum energy performance standards allow capturing significant benefits for the society as a whole and for consumers individually. Reviewing the minimum energy performance standards is a critical and urgent issue for Brazil and the methodology presented in this paper can be useful in the process of decision-making related to new regulatory developments. • More restrictive MEPS for air conditioners is urgently needed in Brazil. • The synergy between the CGIEE, Procel and PBE/INMETRO should be improved. • The methodology presented in the paper can support the process of MEPS revisions. • Energy, economic and environmental benefits of more stringent MEPS can be very significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from large industries the Canadian government proposed using a tradable emissions performance standard approach, where the intensity of emissions, rather than the absolute level, is regulated. Unlike a cap and trade system, an emissions performance standard does not guarantee a certain overall level of emission reductions, a fact that has led to significant criticism. However, because of the dynamics of performance standards, they may reduce concerns over reductions in international competitiveness in cases where a country has climate policies that are more aggressive than those of some of its trade partners. Likewise, a performance standard may mesh more efficiently with existing taxes and therefore cause less overall economic impact than an absolute cap and trade system. This paper considers the theoretical arguments for and against such a performance standard system and evaluates it in comparison to a cap and trade system using a dynamic general equilibrium model applied to Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance standard procedure, a quantitative method for quantifying baseline greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or removals, provides an alternative approach to the project-by-project methods currently being used in most GHG offset programs. By providing a top-down approach to assessing the three main technical offset accounting elements (setting the baseline, identifying leakage, and monitoring), this approach has the advantage of providing a broader analytical framework for addressing the issues and the ability to focus project developers in areas where such issues can be addressed more comprehensively. In addition, this top-down approach gives the performance standard developer the opportunity to consider the ecosystem services and human impacts in the analysis of where and what types of forestry projects should occur within a geographic area. Although further field study is required to understand the full implementation considerations involved, this procedure has the potential to help reduce some of the current reasons identified for the slow development of forest carbon offset projects to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building sector is a significant source of GHG emissions and has great potential for emission reductions. The effectiveness of building energy codes on energy savings and emission mitigation is of a primary concern to policy makers, but uncertainty in cost and benefit in different regions complicates code selection and implementation. The impacts of a specific building energy standard vary depending on the heating system's thermal efficiency and the heating fuel's carbon intensity. This paper examines the GHG emissions due to space heating for new construction single-detached households in Canada under different building energy codes and enforcement scenarios. The two codes considered are the BC step code and Passive House criteria. Three scenarios are examined reflecting different levels of stringency of standards between 2020 and 2032. The results show both BC step code and passive house criteria can help mitigate the space heating GHG emissions. There is no significant difference between the BC step code and the passive house criteria from the perspective of GHG emission reduction in the province of British Columbia; however, when implemented nationwide, the passive house criteria is 12% more effective in abating space heating GHG emissions than the most stringent level (i.e. Step 5) of BC step code. • Passive House criteria are more effective in reducing the space heating GHG emissions than BC Step Code does in Canada. • BC Step Code and Passive House criteria can save space heating GHG emissions of new single-houses by 77% and 89%, respectively. • Building performance standards are less impactful in regions where fuel carbon intensity is low. • No notable difference is found between BC Step Code and Passive House criteria in GHG emission reduction per unit area in BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]