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Spatial Planning for a Low-Carbon Future

By Elena Crete

Over the last year, SDSN USA and the SDSN DDPP Executive Director have worked together to define pathways to a low carbon transition in the US, demonstrating the technical feasibility of achieve net zero emissions by 2050. During this project two regional reports were published on the low-carbon transition for the Midwest and Southeast United States, charting out the key technologies and resources available in these regions to produce low carbon energy. According to the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) there are at least three pillars to decarbonization: electricity decarbonization, energy efficiency, and electrification. As fossil fuel driven technologies are electrified and renewable energy resources expand in the US and across the world, there is an increasing need for integrated land use planning strategies, tools, and policies with regard to agriculture, forestry, other land uses, and negative emissions technologies.

In the US alone, it is estimated that the land area requirements for ground-mounted solar and onshore wind will be vast, on the scale of Vermont + New Hampshire and New Mexico respectively, connected by thousands of miles of transmission lines. The planning for these vast installations must be done carefully, quickly, and on a spatial and temporal scale unprecedented in our history. This paper authored by Grace Wu from The Nature Conservancy and commissioned by SDSN USA discusses the intricate issues of such planning schemes and introduces some of the tools already in use in California and the Southwest US.

To learn more: Download the report here and check out the resources below. You can also watch the webinar presentation of this paper and research here .