Climate change represents a profound policy challenge to America and the world – requiring a response at a sweeping scale and with unprecedented speed centered on remaking the energy foundations of our society. The move to a clean and renewable energy future must be advanced at the same time America works to recover from the most serious pandemic in a century and the parallel economic collapse triggered by Covid-19.

In response to this challenge, SDSN USA has produced America's Zero-Carbon Action Plan (ZCAP), a comprehensive policy report that presents a strategic plan to create a carbon-neutral economy for the United States by 2050, anchored in key findings from a previous SDSN report, Achieving Carbon Neutrality in the United States. The ZCAP was designed by a cohort of nearly 100 researchers and 19 Chairs who make up the Zero Carbon Consortium, who are experts in their fields of climate change policy; clean energy pathways modeling; industrial policy high-employment green economies; legislative and regulatory policy; electricity (power) generation; transportation; industry; buildings; sustainable land-use; and sustainable materials management.

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The US Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project launched in January 2019 and has its roots in the global Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), a SDSN initiative co-founded with the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (DDRI). A white paper and two regional studies on a low-carbon transition in the US were released in 2020.

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