The universities have been awarded the grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act State Energy Program. The project will identify policy options and perform an impact analysis to help the State of Ohio prepare for federal climate change policies.
Ohio University and Ohio State have outlined a 12-month work plan for a statewide inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and development of a web-based system for climate policy evaluation.
Scott Miller, director of energy and environmental programs at Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University is appointed as the project director.
Joseph Fiksel, executive director of Ohio State’s Center for Resilience at College of Engineering, will serve as deputy project director and lead the development of an energy-economic policy computer modeling tool to allow the state to analyze the economic, environmental, and social impacts of possible climate change policies.
Mr Fiksel’s team will utilize a computer modeling tool called T21-Ohio, developed in collaboration with the Millennium Institute of Washington, DC.
Andy Keeler, professor at Glenn School, who does research in the field of environmental and natural resources economics and policy, will take the lead in evaluating existing and proposed state and regional climate change policies. His team will then make recommendations for an Ohio climate change plan based on their findings.
The team will conduct an assessment of the opportunities and risks of greenhouse gas policies to Ohio industries with a special appreciation of the impact to Ohio’s energy-intensive industries. A final report will describe the strengths and weaknesses for a suite of policies.
Mr Fiksel, said: ”This is a ground-breaking project, combining multidisciplinary skills from universities and leading consulting firms to develop an integrated approach for state-level policy analysis. We expect that other states will be interested in building on this experience.”
