The Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), 2010
In August 2008, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts signed into law the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA), making Massachusetts one of the first states in the nation to move forward with a comprehensive regulatory program to address Climate Change. The GWSA requires Massachusetts to set economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals that will achieve GHG reductions of:
- between 10 percent and 25 percent below 1990 GHG emissions levels by 2020.
- 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
To help ensure that these goals will be met, in late 2009 the State chose a team lead by the The Eastern Research Group (ERG) and including staff from SEI, Synapse Energy Economics, Abt Associates and Cambridge Systematics to provide strategic and analytical support to the GWSA process through January 2011. In particular, the team will be using SEI’s LEAP modeling system to develop a new energy and climate mitigation model for the State that will examine how the 2020 and 2050 goals can best be met.