The Route to Economic Recovery Lies in Climate Recovery
President Obama has invigorated the debate on climate action and clean energy both in the United States, and internationally.
This isn't just good news for our planet and energy security, but for our economic recovery and future prosperity as countries the world over fight the global recession.
In Britain and in the US, tough economic times led some people to say that we should row back on tackling climate change and delay any moves to a low carbon economy.
But now we know that the route to economic recovery lies in climate recovery.
As President Obama, Britain's Prime Minister Brown, and other world leaders have recognized, a green and sustainable economy is a vital component of the world's economic upturn.
The move to a low carbon economy is not just a way of preventing ecological disaster some years in the future, but it is also an opportunity for now.
Progressive business groups, including energy companies, recognize that business opportunities and jobs are to be found in green technology, manufacturing and energy supplies.
Our approach in the UK, and the approach we hope will succeed here in the US, in China, India and in all the world's major economies, is simple: we will turn the challenges of energy security and climate security into opportunities for businesses to become leaders in clean energy and low carbon technologies.
Here in the US, the opportunities for wind, wave and solar power to be harnessed in places from Texas, to Virginia, to the Northwest, could create millions of jobs, and billions of dollars of investment. To give businesses certainty, we need all the world's economies to agree that they will do their part to reduce emissions too.
And also take the issue of energy generated from coal. The future of coal poses the starkest dilemma we face: it is a polluting fuel, but is used across the world because it is low cost and it is flexible enough to meet fluctuations in demand for power.
To square this circle, last week I outlined to the British Parliament our plans for the biggest demonstration of carbon capture and storage technology in the world.
This includes:
- A major push on the technology: up to four new projects to demonstrate carbon capture and storage, each one ten times bigger than the largest currently running in the world, and together meaning we are doing more than any other country.
- The end of unabated coal: I proposed a new rule that no new coal power station will get consent without demonstrating carbon capture from day one, on about 25 per cent of its output. Applications that don't demonstrate carbon capture and storage will be turned down.
- And a clear commitment to low-carbon coal once it's proven: there will an independent judgement about when the technology is proven, and once it is, power stations will have to fit it not just on a part of the plant but on 100 per cent of their output.
A solution that can -- with the right strategic lead and investment from government -- once and for all settle this issue. I've already had discussions with Energy Secretary Chu as to how we can work together on CCS.
The issue of how we can radically accelerate the spread of cleaner technology -- for the benefit of the climate and for a permanent green recovery -- will be discussed at an international meeting taking place in Washington today.
The Major Economies Forum will bring together elected officials from every continent of the world to assess how we can break through the deadlock that has characterised climate talks.
Success at the Forum, and crucially at the international climate negotiations that will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark in December will help unlock these green opportunities and set the world on a clear path that protects our environment, and promotes a green recovery.
There are big issues we still need to resolve. Agreeing how money and technology should flow from one nation to another and how we put a value on rainforests, is a lot harder than agreeing that climate change needs action. Actually getting economies to move towards low carbon, with all the investment and new rules that will be needed, is a harder task still.
If governments and our businesses and citizens want it enough, a global deal to prevent climate change further damaging our environment, and our economies, is within reach. And one which once and for all will tie together our economic prosperity, energy security and the protection of our climate.
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climate recovery eh? I don't think so, I think we can slow or stave off impending disaster, but recovery highly unlikely, humanity survived much worse global warming though!!!!
think about the end of the Younger Dryas epoch or the end of the Pliestocene............
the oceans could have been as much as 300 feet lower then!
Your right ,humans are surviveors. But these were stone age , maybe some bronze age people adapting to new hunting grounds and tactics. We have people even today surviving in the arctic circle and on the edge of some of the great deserts little changed from the stone age. It will be interesting to see how a highly sophistocated technological society like ours and most of the world will adapt.
Most of us our here are awaiting the cost/benefit analysis, and whether the proposed actions will result have an appreciable effect, especially as India and China increase their output of pollutants exponentially. Of course there is none.
Global climate change is real and has been for ten million years. Capping carbon dioxide is another way for government to control behavior and collect taxes. Funny how so many who support taxes on carbon are the same people who will gain from the tax collection. Al Gore claimed the debate was over only because he could not support his position or verify all his claims. What a crock!
Mr. Milliband,
I hope you are not pandering to the anti-nuclear, or pro-coal crowds here in the US. The UK is on the right path with Nuclear. 'Clean' coal is an oxymoron and waste of time. We've got plenty of uranium, now and for the future.
Carbon sequestration, cap and trade, just another way for the Gov't to instill yet another tax on the unsuspecting public, without calling it a tax. When your utility bills go up 25% because of new gov't regulations, is that a tax? When everything you purchase goes up due to the gov't mandated cap and trade, is that a tax? No new taxes our president said for those making less than $150,000....BS!
Lots of hidden taxes, and more to come. Hold onto your wallets folks, they are after all of your change, and the paper money too!
OTH, If CO2 is a pollutant--as it most certainly is--then allowing it to be emitted at no cost to the emitters is also a tax on society and future generations, which means it's also a subsidy to polluters.
That maybe, but the increased cost is going to be pawned off on the taxpayers. It won't come out of company profits or anything of the sort.
One thing the piece discusses is how the UK will fund research into carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Like the US, Britain gets a significant percentage of its power from coal generation, and like the US, has a substantial coal mining industry. Coal is cheap, if you don't count the environmental costs, so there is a great deal of pressure to find a way to make it cleaner, regardless of how improbable that is at the moment.
The steps outlined in the piece seem good ones and worth emulating in the US, but they don't include either cap and trade or carbon tax moves, and if that represents a real gap in British policy, that's a huge mistake, just as it would be here. If we don't get an international agreement to start reflecting the true costs of carbon-based energy production in the prices of the energy produced that way, we'll never get this problem beaten.
I hope this lapse in Mr. Milliband's piece is just an editorial slip, and not the real shape of British policy to come. Neither Welsh nor Appalachian coal miners' interests will be well served if they have jobs while their children's futures are discarded.
In the fourth quarter of 2008 as GE/NBC stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.” Reviewing their lobbying filings, GE’s specific lobbying issues included the “Climate Stewardship Act,” “Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,” “Global Warming Reduction Act,” “Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,” “Low Carbon Economy Act,” and “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.” Do you think this “big business” is just concerned about the environment?
I wonder why GE is so interested in becoming eco-friendly??? Could it be it is the next biggest ripoff waiting to be perpetrated by a big capitalist company and the American people will have to foot the bill? Climate Recovery, now that is one whopping oxymoron.
Eh? I have no idea what you are trying to insinuate here. Why is GE even relevant?
Pinobama thinks global warming is a hoax and because he watches bill o' on fox news he is towing the line that GE is being green to steal money from the American Public. That NBC is a radical network bla bla bla.
Perhaps, you know or work with someone that owns one of the 451 million bicycles in the U.S. It's an industry that has seen annual growth rates between 10% - 25% worldwide. visit article online at "High Growth and Big Margins in the $61 Billion Bicycle Industry", http://seekingalpha.com/article/133109-high-growth-and-big-margins-in-the-61-billion-bicycle-industry
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