A new American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) report, Halfway There: Energy Efficiency Can Cut Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Half by 2050, offers a roadmap for dramatically reducing energy waste and getting the U.S. halfway toward its climate goals. It identifies ambitious but cost-effective and technically feasible measures that would avert emissions of nearly 2,500 million metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide — equivalent to all emissions from cars, trucks, homes, and commercial buildings in 2050.
The report identifies 11 opportunities and related policies to achieve the savings. Transportation, which will see a transition to electric vehicles, would deliver nearly half (46%) of the emissions reductions while buildings would deliver a third and industry a fifth. For energy savings, buildings would deliver 40% of the total, followed by transportation (32%) and industry (27%).
ACEEE also recently released the 13th edition of the ACEEE State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, a progress report on state policies and programs that save energy while producing environmental and economic benefits. Both publications can be downloaded here.
