IMPACT: Integrated Bottom-Up Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways for Cities

TL;DR

IMPACT is a bottom-up modeling framework that integrates technology, zoning, and decarbonization policies to forecast city-specific greenhouse gas emission pathways, aiding local decision-making.

Contribution

It introduces a novel bottom-up model with residence-level detail that combines multiple policy scenarios for city-level emission forecasting.

Findings

Sprawling urban layouts incur higher emissions.

Certain policy combinations can lead to rebounding emissions.

The model highlights the importance of integrated policy planning.

Abstract

Increasing urbanization puts pressure on cities to prioritize sustainable growth and avoid carbon lock-in. Available modeling frameworks fall acutely of guiding such pivotal decision-making at the local level. Financial incentives, behavioral interventions, and mandates drive sustainable technology adoption, while land-use zoning plays a critical role in carbon emissions from the built environment. Researchers typically evaluate impacts of policies top down, on a national scale, or else post-hoc on developments vis-\`a-vis different polices in the past. Such analyses cannot forecast emission pathways for specific cities, and hence cannot serve as input to local policymakers. Here, we present IMPACT pathways, from a bottom-up model with residence level granularity, that integrate technology adoption policies with zoning policies, climate change, and grid decarbonization scenarios. With the city at the heart of our analysis, we identify an emission premium for sprawling and show that adverse policy combinations exist that can exhibit rebounding emissions over time.