Vancouver’s renewable city strategy: Economic and policy analysis

Vancouver’s Renewable City Strategy aims for 100% renewable energy and lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To see if Vancouver’s policies will achieve this, I used the CIMS energy-economy model to evaluate the impact of potential policies. I simulated Vancouver’s energy use and greenhouse gas emissions under different policy scenarios: (1) current policy, (2) renewable city scenario-specific policies Vancouver has proposed, and (3) additional policies focusing on fuel switching. My results show that fossil fuel use and emissions increase relative to 2015 under current policy by about 10%. The renewable city scenario policies decrease fossil fuel use and emissions by 30% and 25% respectively, but fail to meet Vancouver’s targets. Only additional stringent policies reduce fossil fuel use and emissions to near zero, thereby meeting the targets. These result show that to meet its targets, Vancouver must implement policies that specifically focus on fuel switching in buildings and vehicles.