Cost-effectiveness analysis of activism on reducing CO2e emissions [Public]

	A	B	C	D	E	F
1	Overview: Climate change activism focused on US federal policy can reduce levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by impacting the likelihood of climate bills passing in the House and Senate, or through affecting executive or regulatory policy. We developed a simple cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) model that assesses activism’s contribution to CO2 emissions, focusing on activism’s potential impacts on two types of bills: a bipartisan bill, and a progressive-influenced bill passed along party lines. According to this CEA, donating to climate change activist groups could be highly cost-effective in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). In this model, the Build Back Better Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act were used as templates for progressive and bipartisan climate bills, respectively. We assumed that the Build Back Better Act would be progressive because it only needs to pass by a simple majority in the Senate. In contrast, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed with bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress. We used policy proposals from these bills to estimate averted CO2e emissions between 2022 and 2030. We estimated activism's contribution to the likelihood of the bills' being passed by using estimates for the Sunrise Movement's contribution as a proxy. (This value was the most difficult parameter in this model to estimate and is highly subjective.) We estimated the cost of activism by using the Sunrise Movement's revenue from 2015 to 2020 as a proxy cost. Given the large uncertainty on the different values we used in our analysis, our estimates should be viewed as rough, indicative estimates. For more information on the infrastructure bill, please see the White House's Fact Sheet. This NPR explainer contains an overview of budget reconciliation. We have also developed a Guesstimate version of this CEA, which allowed us to assign ranges of values and probability distributions for each input. The Guesstimate model uses Monte Carlo simulations with 5,000 samples per metric.
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3	Difference in CO2e emissions between proposed policies and business-as-usual (BAU)
4	Proposed Policy	Bill	Reduction in total CO2e emissions between 2022 and 2030 (million metric tons)	Notes
5	(1) Incentives for 80% clean energy by 2030	Build Back Better Act	2,952.73	We estimated total CO2e reductions in power sector emissions between 2022 and 2030 using a model that included both a CEPP and a BAU scenario.
6	(2) Electrifying appliances	Build Back Better Act	121.63	We used a model developed by Rewiring America to estimate reductions in CO2e emissions under various electrification uptake scenarios.
7	(3) Electrifying transit and school buses	Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act	2.09	We estimated the number of electrified buses using values proposed in the American Jobs Plan as an anchor. We calculated the reduction in CO2e emissions by finding the difference in total emissions for the policy proposal and BAU between the years 2022 and 2030. The infrastructure bill allows for both electric and alternative fuels school buses. Because we did not know what proportion of the US school bus fleet will be powered by electricity versus an alternative fuel, we assumed that all buses would be electrified. This assumption likely overestimated the proposed policy's CO2e reduction. We also assumed that new electrified buses would replace existing diesel buses at a constant rate.
8	(4) EV tax incentives	Build Back Better Act	123.71	We used a model from the Rhodium Group that considers a suite of electric vehicle investments including EV tax incentives, expanding the EV charger network, and electrifying buses. After computing total emissions between 2022 and 2030 for the suite of investments, we subtracted the change in emissions from "(3) Electrifying transit and school buses" from the model output. We then multiplied the remainder by 75% to estimate the contribution of EV tax incentives to the change in emissions. We attributed the other 25% of the remainder to the increased EV charger network. We assumed that compared to an increased charger network, EV tax incentives were more likely to drive EV adoption and would be responsible for a greater share of the reduced emissions.
9	(5) EV chargers	Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act	41.24	See "(5) Electric vehicle tax incentives."
10	(6) Methane leaks	Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act	0.50	Using EPA data, we estimated average CO2e emissions per abandoned oil/gas well. We then multiplied this value by the number of plugged wells that Resources for the Future proposed plugging over the next ten years (57,000 to 62,000 wells). For both the policy proposal case and BAU, we assumed that the number of abandoned wells would not increase over time.
11	(7) Reducing congestion and emissions near ports and airports	Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act	14.76	We performed a back-of-the-envelope calculation of CO2 reductions from airports by first estimating the contribution of the airport industry to the aircraft sector's total carbon emissions. Because we were unsure how much the infrastructure bill would reduce annual emissions from airports, we assumed that it would range between 1 and 10% for pessimistic, realistic, and optimistic cases. We then calculated the total emissions between 2022 and 2030 for both the policy proposal and BAU and found the difference between the two. We estimated emission reductions in ports by estimating the change in CO2 emissions that would be due to various scenarios (e.g., replacing older drayage trucks with hybrid electric trucks) and summing their reductions. We added the emissions reductions from ports and airports to find their total reduction in emissions between 2022 and 2030.
12	(8) Carbon capture	Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act	98.00	We did not have enough information to calculate how much CO2e levels would be reduced due to carbon capture, as proposed in the 2021 infrastructure bill. Therefore, when constructing our proxy bipartisan bill, we instead included a different carbon capture provision from a previous bipartisan bill. This bill was HR 133, the Consolidated Appropriations Act (2021), which extended the 45Q tax credit by two years. This estimate is based on that provision.
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14	Avoided CO2 emissions due to progressive and bipartisan action
15	Bill	Type of climate bill	Difference between policy and BAU
16			Total CO2e emissions between 2022 and 2030 (million metric tons)
17	Build Back Better Act	Progressive	3,198.08
18	Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act	Bipartisan	156.58
19		Total	3,354.66
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21	How frequently Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and White House within the past 40 years
22	Start	End	Time elapsed since last Democratic trifecta (within past 40 years)
23	1981	1983	N/A
24	1993	1995	10
25	2009	2011	14
26	2021	2023	10
27		Median	10.00
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29	Expected value of activism on avoiding CO2 emissions
30		Very Pessimistic	Pessimistic	Realistic	Optimistic	Notes
31	Change in probability of a progressive climate bill passing because of activism	0.50%	0.50%	5.00%	10.00%	We used the 2021 reconciliation bill as a template for a progressive climate bill. We assumed that activism increases the likelihood of a progressive bill passing. This is because relative to a bipartisan climate bill, policy proposals in a progressive climate bill are more likely to be aligned with the agendas of climate activists; it is possible that the climate activists' demands even played a role in shaping the climate bill. We therefore find it unlikely that activism would decrease the likelihood of a progressive climate bill passing and only assign a positive sign to the change in probability.
32	Change in probability of a bipartisan climate bill passing because of activism	-5.00%	0%	1.00%	5.00%	In the Realistic and Optimistic cases, we assumed that activism would increase the likelihood of a bipartisan bill being passed by putting pressure on legislators to enact climate policy. In the Pessimistic case, we assumed that activism would decrease the likelihood of a bipartisan bill being passed. In this case, we assumed that activism would further polarize climate change as an issue and discourage moderates from taking pro-climate action. We also assumed that activists may advocate for a more progressive bill in place of the bipartisan bill, therefore reducing the likelihood of the bipartisan bill being passed. Ultimately, we estimated probabilities of -5%, 0%, 1%, and 5% for the Very Pessimistic, Pessimistic, Realistic, and Optimistic cases, respectively. We selected these values by first assuming that the Realistic case would only change the probability by a very small percentage. We then used that percentage to anchor our estimates for the other cases.
33	Expected value of activism in changing CO2e emissions in 2030, due to progressive action (million metric tons)	15.99	15.99	159.90	319.81	See calculation.
34	Expected value of activism in changing CO2e emissions in 2030, due to bipartisan action (million metric tons)	-7.83	0.00	1.57	7.83	See calculation.
35	Ratio of bipartisan bill cycles to progressive bill cycles, per decade	5.00	5.00	2.50	2.00	Because it seemed likely that bipartisan bills would be proposed more frequently than progressive bills, we weighted the expected value of activism by the ratio of bipartisan to progressive bill cycles per decade. For the Pessimistic case, we assumed that bipartisan bills with climate provisions would be proposed once every Congressional cycle while progressive bills would be proposed once every time Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and White House. For the Realistic case, we assumed that bipartisan bills would be passed every presidential term instead of once every congressional cycle. As for the Optimistic case, we assumed that bipartisan bills would occur twice as frequently as progressive bills. In this case, bipartisan bills are proposed every Congressional cycle (or 5 times a decade) while progressive bills are proposed every other Congressional cycle (or 2.5 times a decade).
36	Estimated cost of activism	$24,453,568				We used the Sunrise Movement's revenue from 2015 to 2020 as a proxy for activism’s estimated cost. We chose this time period because it covered the beginning of the Sunrise Movement's finances through the end of 2020, which is roughly when Democrats secured the House, Senate, and Presidency and therefore increased the likelihood of substantive climate policy being passed. Activist groups, such as the Sunrise Movement, likely used their funding raised up until that point to advocate for passing pro-climate policies under the Democratic trifecta.
37	Cost per change in metric ton of CO2e (positive equals decrease in CO2e)	-$1.06	$1.53	$0.15	$0.07	See calculation.
38	Change in CO2e per dollar (metric ton of CO2e/dollar)	-0.95	0.65	6.70	13.72	See calculation.
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