Advance Long-Term Climate Policy

Acadia Center’s Long-Term Climate Policy focus area offers pathways to meeting critical climate targets and future decarbonization goals. Meeting emissions reduction targets will be the difference between disruptive change that we can adapt to, and catastrophic change that we cannot. If we are not able to plan ahead and see how each existing policy and proposed change fits into the bigger picture, we cannot have an accurate sense of whether we are making progress, and where we are falling short. Acadia Center’s climate planning work is oriented towards finding the most effective and equitable way to reach those targets, while adjusting to political, economic, and technological shifts.

The work grouped under this area is quantitative, analytical, and tied to innovative but practical changes to the way a livable climate is valued, both as a core responsibility of various government agencies and for the many stakeholders who are engaged in shaping climate pathways.

• Long-Term Climate Planning: our work to research, recommend and share specific pathways for states to take on their own and in cooperation with multi-state cooperation to reduce emissions. This work is supported by quantitative analysis, including many ground-breaking reports.
• Government Agency Reform: our work to modernize government decision-making by adding climate change to the stated goals and enabling statutes of various agencies, and to make sure all agencies have a plan to hit reductions targets. This is an example of work that Acadia Center is engaged in to review and shape governmental decision-making to be responsive to climate goals and to the needs of electricity consumers, environmental justice, and public health.
• Carbon Markets: our work on carbon-pricing mechanisms that use the market to drive change, such as the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI) and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which “put a price on carbon” by charging for pollution, one that is done with attention to the needs to address environmental justice and improve air quality for all residents and communities.