Lloyd Knox

Our students are carrying out four projects this fall quarter. Summaries are below. Three of the four final project reports can be

found here. We are waiting for clearance from the client to publish the compost project final report.

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1) Incorporating climate change into state infrastructure planning

Context: In order to achieve the carbon reduction goals of Executive Order (EO) B-30-15, and to adequately take into consideration the complexity of impacts of and adaption to climate change, the governor, through the order, directed State agencies to consider climate change in all planning and investment, and to employ full life cycle cost accounting(LCCA) in infrastructure investment. The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) has been tasked with incorporating recommendations from the TechnicalAdvisory Group (TAG) to set guidelines and assist State agencies in implementing this directive.

Project: In Summer 2016, a UC Davis graduate student prepared an overview of LCCA within state agencies for the OPR. Our work will start from this overview, the California Adaptation Planning Guide 9-StepProcess, and the Cal-adapt tools and data. With additional literature review we will look more closely at how these approaches have been employed, outline a methodology to incorporate climate change considerations, and apply the methodology to a case study in infrastructure planning and investment. The product of this research will be a memo that describes the methodology and a case study, and can help guide TAG, which has been meeting since April 2016, to make recommendations and develop a guidance document for State agencies.

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2) Analyzing the Appendices of a Global Subnational Climate Change Agreement

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Context: The Under 2 MOU originated from a partnership between California and Baden- Württemberg out of the desire to bring together ambitious states and regions willing to make key climate change commitments to help galvanize action at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 21 and beyond. It is one of few climate change agreements that puts subnational leaders at the forefront and has such a diverse, global scope. Subnational governments (states, regions, cities) who are signatories to the Under 2 MOU commit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 80 to 95%, or limit to 2 metric tons of CO2-equivalent per capita, by 2050. All signatories must submit an appendix, which outlines how they plan to achieve the 2050 goal. Governments who are endorsers of the Under 2 MOU (including nations) demonstrate their support of the initiative, but do not need to submit an appendix. The Under 2 MOU has garnered support from 135 subnational jurisdictions spanning 32 countries and 6 continents. Collectively, the Under 2 Coalition represents more than 783 million people and $21 trillion in GDP, equivalent to more than a quarter of the global economy.

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Project: The student team will analyze 58 appendices from Under 2 MOU signatories’ in order to extract quantitative and qualitative data. Since The Governor’s Office simply offers guidelines for how to write an appendix and does not enforce a template, the appendices widely vary and are difficult to compare. The student team will identify key issues facing jurisdictions; gather climate change policies and actions; extract all measurable commitments; note any information on inventory, measurement, reporting, and verification (I/MRV); compare with Nationally

Determined Contributions (NDCs) where possible; and more.

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3) Composting and Sequestering Carbon in Soil

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Since carbon dioxide has a lifetime of tens of decades in the atmosphere, simply halting carbon emissions will not halt climate change. If we wish to reduce the amount of damage that current carbon dioxide levels commit us to, we must investigate methods of capturing atmospheric carbon and storing it in a form which cannot act as a greenhouse gas. The Marin Carbon Project research has shown that rangelands, when treated with a surface level of compost, have the capability to capture approximately one ton of carbon dioxide per acre per year ​[1]​. We wish to investigate how much carbon could be sequestered by spreading compost on campus grounds, as well as the environmental,legal, and logistical considerations that implementing such a project would entail. The compost used would be produced from organic waste collected on campus; using this waste on campus rather than sending it elsewhere is more consistent with the campus’s zero waste goal. We hope that the information found in this study will help determine whether such a project should be included in the campus’s climate action plan.

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4) Planning an Energy Efficiency Outreach Pilot Program

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Context: The City of Davis and Cool Davis are developing a community-wide campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and attain carbon neutrality by 2050. One of the campaign goals is to improve Energy Efficiency (EE) related decision-making and implementation by Davis property owners. The City will soon be launching a pilot project to study efficacy of EE outreach to existing homeowners. The project will target owner-occupied single family homes, with a narrow focus on achieving proactive Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) replacement that meets or exceeds 2013 standards, and also related EE upgrade/replacement actions (such as duct sealing, window replacement, insulation upgrades, etc.). The outreach project will contact 150 homes to schedule visits from project staff and volunteers who will educate the homeowners as to their options. Since city permits are required for HVAC installations, the city permit data base can be used to target owners of homes whose systems are likely due for replacement, based on their age.

Project: The project team will assist the City in establishing baseline data and the design of this program, with a particular focus on the use of the City permit data to select the homes to target. The group will learn how to access the data, understand its non-idealities, and identify means to work around these. Preliminary investigation of the data has revealed some peculiarities: for example, 13% of homes with AC permits in a two-year period had two AC permits. Since installing two systems in two years is unlikely, this is puzzling and undermines confidence in a straightforward interpretation of the permit data.

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