Over the past decade, through a combination of technical analysis and facilitation, CCAP has worked with key states at different stages of climate change action to advance cutting-edge climate change programs. Several of these efforts are summarized below.

California
In 2005 and 2006, prior to opening an office to establish an ongoing program in California, CCAP produced a multi-sector study for the California Energy Commission (CEC) entitled, Cost-Effective GHG Mitigation Measures for California. The study provided a bottom-up assessment of GHG reduction measures from a range of industry sectors in California, not including the power and oil refining sectors, and concluded that ambitious GHG reduction targets could likely be met at little cost to consumers. 

Cost-effective measures (measures costing less than $30 per ton and averaging less than $6 per ton) analyzed by CCAP combined with those already underway in the state were found to achieve more than 85 percent of the reductions needed to meet the 2020 statewide emission limit, not including opportunities in the refining and power sectors. CCAP also developed a key report describing how a load-based cap would work for the power sector. This design, a predecessor to the “first seller” idea, has been actively considered in California and Oregon as a way to avoid "leakage" of emissions within the power sector from capped to uncapped generating sources. 

Oregon
In 2006 CCAP assisted Oregon in the design of an offsets program as part of a larger load-based cap-and-trade system for the power sector. Though interactive working sessions, CCAP educated the Oregon Carbon Allocation Task Force on key elements of offset program design, including specific issues that relate to a load-based trading system.  CCAP also prepared a strawman proposal that was largely accepted as a “placeholder” for further deliberation on the design of a cap-and-trade program. This effort helped educate Oregon stakeholders in advance of the larger offset debate happening now within the Western Climate Initiative.

New York
In June 2001, Governor Pataki created the New York Greenhouse Gas Task Force to give advice on development of a climate change action plan and asked CCAP to facilitate the dialogue. 
CCAP co-chaired and facilitated this dialogue and provided analytical support to the process by leading the analysis of mitigation options across sectors. In addition, CCAP led the discussions and the analysis in support of five working groups — electricity, transportation and land-use, buildings/industry, emissions registry and trading, and agriculture/forestry. Task Force members, consisting of senior officials from state government agencies, industries, electric utilities, environmental groups, universities and others, advised analytical and modeling efforts and guided the development of policy recommendations. 

The outcome of this yearlong dialogue was a set of recommendations to the Governor from CCAP that specified a set of actions to mitigate GHG emissions in the state (released April 2003). A number of important recommendations received consensus, including the recommendation of the Task Force that the state adopt a target to reduce emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2010 and 10 percent below 1990 by 2020. This recommendation was adopted as a goal of the New York State Energy Planning Board in June 2002. In addition, the Governor announced the state would be pursuing two other recommendations: the state adopt a renewable portfolio standard and follow California in adopting GHG-based tailpipe standards for automobiles.

Connecticut
In December 2002, the state of Connecticut asked CCAP to provide facilitation services in support of development of a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Plan. Connecticut’s goal was to convene stakeholders to identify 1) a greenhouse gas reduction target and date, 2) specific measures to achieve the target, and 3) policy steps needed to launch the recommended measures. 

As facilitator, CCAP fostered agreement among stakeholders on the basis of the technical analyses conducted during the process and ensuing discussions. CCAP also facilitated discussions in five work groups (transportation/land use; education/outreach; technology; energy/solid waste; and buildings/facilities); coordinate the analysis of mitigation actions from all sectors; and drafted a Climate Change Action Plan report based on a combination of consensus and majority views emerging from the stakeholder process. 

Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts asked CCAP to help it fill gaps in its draft Action Plan. During the project, CCAP developed a GHG policy baseline from 1990 out to 2010 and 2020. In addition, CCAP, working with the commonwealth, assessed key mitigation actions in the draft Action plan and others that CCAP identified.

This analysis considered the potential range of GHG reductions per action, a range of cost per ton estimates in average annual terms, and key implementation issues. At the commonwealth’s request, CCAP conducted detailed analysis on policies and measures that might be used to reduce emissions from residential oil heat and high global warming potential gases. This work resulted in the inclusion of several new measures in the final Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan.

Maine
The state of Maine has set a goal to reduce near-term state greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. In fall 2003, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) selected CCAP as the lead technical consultant for the Maine Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multi-sector climate change stakeholder process tasked with developing a set of actions to enable the state to meet its GHG emissions target.  From November 2003 to June 2004, CCAP led the technical analysis and assisted with the coordination of stakeholder meetings and 10 meetings of the four working groups: 1) Transportation and Land Use; 2) Energy and Solid Waste; 3) Buildings, Facilities and Manufacturing; and 4) Agriculture and Forestry. 

CCAP produced a series of reports and informational papers for the process providing details on potential GHG mitigation options, which included CCAP’s quantification of emissions reductions from key measures. Based on CCAP’s work, the Maine stakeholders approved a total of 55 policy options to reduce the state’s GHG emissions and to be incorporated into the state’s Climate Action Plan (currently under development by Maine DEP), which was presented to the Maine legislature in November 2004. The CCAP analysis projected that with implementation of all options quantified by CCAP the state would reach the target in 2010 and be only slightly above the target in 2020. 

Wisconsin 
In 1995, CCAP concluded a project in which it provided analytical support to and facilitated the discussions of the Southeast Wisconsin Dialogue on Ozone Pollution and Global Climate Change. CCAP facilitated the dialogue — consisting of representatives from industry, environmental organizations, state and city governments, and the state legislature — and provided analytical support of mitigation options. In its first phase, this high-level panel composed of elected officials, state agency leaders and industry and environmental group representatives identified cost-effective measures for reducing ozone. 

In its second phase, the Wisconsin dialogue group developed a state GHG mitigation strategy, with supporting analysis from CCAP on a wide array of mitigation options and explicitly addressed the relationship between VOC and CO2 emissions mitigation efforts.  The panel’s recommendations to Gov. Thompson were well received and a number of the ideas (such as green pricing for electricity) are now being implemented.

New Jersey
CCAP has participated in several projects with New Jersey. It facilitated the implementation of the New Jersey-Netherlands Cooperative Effort. Under this effort, CCAP assisted in the facilitation of a GHG emissions trade between New Jersey and the Netherlands. In addition, CCAP helped the state design a state-based GHG emissions bank that will establish a “gold standard” of guidelines for reporting and recording early reductions in GHG emissions. CCAP also assisted the state on the development of their Climate Change Action Plan.