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That 1,200 MW of electricity that Kenya consumes represents the sum total energy use of the 40 million inhabitants of Kenya. This translates to just 30 average watts of electrical power per Kenyan
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Environmental News Network reports that a Kenyan power firm is planning on building a 300 MW wind farm, which will open in 2011 and reach full capacity at 2012. On the one hand, this news has some environmentalists celebrating Kenya's new clean energy plans and touting the fact that the wind farm will provide 30% of the nation's electricity (in reality, a 300 MW wind farm will provide more like 8% of the nation's demand, since it will only operate at about 30% of capacity on average). Perhaps more importantly though, this news throws into stark relief the energy poverty that pervades much of the developing world.
That 1,200 MW of energy that Kenya consumes represents the sum total electricity use of the 40 million inhabitants of Kenya. This translates to just 30 average watts of electrical power per Kenyan, disregarding the disparity between haves and have-nots that exists even in this East African nation. Contrast this to California, a state with a population comparable to Kenya's which has approximate 30,000 MW of average electricity demand, almost thirty times Kenya's total electricity demand. And California is the most electricity-efficient state in the country.
Continue reading "New Kenyan Wind Farm "Victory" Highlights Extreme Energy Poverty " »
By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., cross posted from Prometheus
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Some folks are surprised to learn that market mechanisms for carbon trading allow both the buying and selling of emissions permits. Clearly this sort of capitalistic behavior must be stopped if carbon markets are to work. The Guardian has the details:
Britain's biggest polluting companies are abusing a European emissions trading scheme (ETS) designed to tackle global warming by cashing in their carbon credits in order to bolster ailing balance sheets.
The sell-off has helped trigger a collapse in the price of carbon, making it cheaper to burn high-carbon fossil fuels and leading to a fall in the number of clean energy projects. The moves were seized on by environmentalists and other critics who have previously criticised the European Union's ETS for delivering more windfall profits for business than climate change.
Continue reading "Apparently Markets Allow Buying and Selling" »
The report suggests that $30 billion to computerize health records, expand wireless broadband to rural areas, and create a new smart electric grid--the existing technology investments in the stimulus--would yield 900,000 jobs.
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A recent report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, headed up by Robert Atkinson, indicates that the technology investments in the proposed stimulus plan could create close to one million jobs. This report provides a powerful political and economic argument that any available options for technology investment beyond the $37 billion already included should be exhausted as part of the stimulus.
The report suggests that $30 billion to computerize health records, expand wireless broadband to rural areas, and create a new smart electric grid--the existing technology investments in the stimulus--would yield 900,000 jobs. The New York Times wrote about this report on Monday, accurately noting:
"Beyond creating jobs, advocates say, government investment in these technology fields holds the promise of laying a lasting foundation for more business innovation and efficiency, while helping to create new digital industries."
Continue reading "Technology Investments in Stimulus Will Yield A Million Jobs" »
The entire Republican caucus was joined by 11 Democrats in opposition of the bill, passing with a vote of 244-188.
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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 passed through the lower chamber of congress today, putting the stimulus on track to be signed into law before Presidents Day Weekend. The entire Republican caucus was joined by 11 Democrats in opposition of the bill, passing with a vote of 244-188.
The voting record represents a setback to President Obama's vision of bipartisan governance. Despite meeting with the GOP caucus in order to field questions and hear concerns, Obama was unable to get any House Republicans to vote for the stimulus. TheHill.com reports:
Despite hinting that they might agree with Obama's initial call for a stimulus bill, Republicans in the end balked, and did so forcefully and unanimously, especially after the addition of more than $350 billion in spending by House appropriators.
It seems that Obama's decision to back off tax cuts that drew initial criticism from Congressional Democrats may have played a role in the complete lack of support from the Republican Caucus.
However, there are signs that a provision that has been added into the Senate's version of the stimulus, an adjustment of the alternative minimums tax, could succeed in garnering the votes of House Republicans when the bill arrives back for a final vote in the House. The tax code adjustment would hold down middle-class income taxes for 2009.
A version of the bill is currently working its way through the Senate, and is expected to garner more bipartisan support in its vote next week.
Read more about Breakthrough's thoughts on the stimulus:
So, for those who care about the future of the climate, that's our test: if we want climate policy passed in the US, we need to convince the "Technology Fifteen" that (a) our policy proposal is actually good for their states' economies (rhetoric aside), (b) the costs of compliance are manageable and contained, (c) it will invest heavily in clean energy technology development and deployment, and (d) it will not disproportionately impact different states.
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When it comes to the geography of climate politics, it doesn't break down along the much-ballyhooed "red state/blue state" divide. It's really more about coal states vs. clean states, as John Broder reports in yesterday's New York Times. That's a rift that risks dividing Senate Democrats as climate policies move forward in the 111th Congress.
Continue reading "The Geography of Climate Politics" »
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"These are extraordinary times, and it calls for swift and extraordinary action.
At a time of such great challenge for America, no single issue is as fundamental to our future as energy. "
-Barack Obama, in his remarks today at the White House about energy.
Will US "Climate Envoy" Todd Stern be prepared to advocate a fresh start on a new international climate framework, or will he dust off his old play book and continue to work towards an ineffective and illusory "hard" cap on emissions and a global emissions trading scheme?
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Todd Stern will be named by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the U.S. State Department's special "Climate Envoy," news outlets reported today. Stern's climate credentials include a stint as a senior negotiator representing Bill Clinton's White House at the Kyoto Protocol talks, a role he'll likely reprise at the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks this December.
As a high level negotiator at Kyoto in 1997, Stern helped forge an international climate reduction framework that has been largely ineffective (see Michael and Ted's essay, "Scrap Kyoto", here [pdf]). Stern's appointment thus makes one wonder: has the Clinton-era negotiator learned the lessons of the past 12 years and is now prepared to offer a new direction at the Copenhagen talks? Or does Stern's appointment signal that the Obama administration's official thinking on international climate policy is still stuck in the winter of 1997?
Continue reading "Will New "Climate Envoy" Bring More of the Same for the US in Copenhagen?" »
Filed under: Barack Obama , Cap-and-trade , Economy , Energy , Europe , Global Warming , Innovation , International Agreements/Politics , Policy , Recession , Technology , development | Permalink
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Don't miss the chance to see Conley speak tomorrow, January 27th, at Berkeley Arts and Letters with Michael and Ted introducing.
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Dalton Conley, Breakthrough Senior Fellow, sociology professor at NYU and author of the upcoming book "Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got from the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, BlackBerry Moms, and Economic Anxiety," sat down with Ted Nordhaus to answer some questions about social and economic inequality in America, and the impacts of the current recession on recent socioeconomic trends in the United States. Don't miss the chance to see Conley speak tomorrow, January 27th, at Berkeley Arts and Letters with Michael and Ted introducing.
Q&A:
Ted Nordhaus:
You have written extensively about the impacts of rising social and economic inequality on American culture and society. What would you identify as the key drivers of rising inequality?
Dalton Conley:
Wage inequality has increased for a variety of reasons, perhaps the most important being what economists call "skill-biased technological change" meaning that the new economy skews rewards heavily toward folks who have the most hi-end cognitive and emotional skills and credentials (i.e. educational degrees). But total inequality has increased also because of family dynamics: more and more families are two-earner households with high-earners marrying high-earners, thereby doubling (almost) household inequality.
Nordhaus:
Over the last few decades, up until the current recession, America has experienced both consistently high levels of economic growth and rising levels, by some accounts unprecedented levels, of economic inequality. How are those two phenomena related and do you think it is possible to have a high growth economy without rising levels of inequality?
Conley:
The rewards of growth have been typically unequally distributed in the U.S. For instance, the last time we experienced inequality levels equal to contemporary ones was 1929, right before the crash. So it remains to be seen what the impact of the current bear market will be. There are, however, examples abroad of societies that have managed to obtain standards of living similar to (or better than) ours without such extreme inequality. Northern Europe comes to mind.
Nordhaus:
What do you think the impact of the current recession will be on social inequality? Are we likely to see declining levels of inequality and if so, what impact would you expect that to have on Elsewhere U.S.A?
Conley:
I think inequality may lessen if the evaporation of all this abstract wealth holds fast. However, already public policy has been directed to restoring the old ways. Even if inequality declines, I still think folks will be haunted by economic anxiety. In good times we fear that others are doing better than us in relative terms. In bad times, we fear losing what we have in absolute terms.
Nordhaus:
You write more specifically about the ways in which rising inequality is self reinforcing. The more money affluent Americans make, the higher the opportunity costs of not working become. The resulting greater incentive for affluent Americans to work more, not less, then exacerbates income inequality all the more. Would you expect a recessionary economy in which income inequality was declining to result in a reversal of this dynamic? With the opportunity costs of family time and leisure declining, would you expect affluent Americans to take more time away from work and with their families? What impact might that have on Americans who work in the service sectors to which affluent Americans have in recent decades outsourced so much of their lives?
Conley:
I could see a potential upside of more folks living a slower lifestyle--cooking at home more and outsourcing less childcare and other aspects of what was once family life; this might be an upside of a tepid economy. However, the monkey wrench in all this is the fact that we are burdened with enormous household (and national) debt thanks to our recent consumption binge. So most of us--thanks to credit card bills or mortgages that exceed the value of our homes--don't have the option of working less and enjoying simpler pleasures we had forgotten about. We are going to be working for our interest payments and feeling perhaps even more pressure to earn.
Nordhaus:
You write a lot about the ways in which modern life, and particularly the market, has increasingly erased many of the old modernist dualities - work and leisure, public and private, market goods and public goods - mostly in the negative; but aren't there real benefits to many of these trends as well, in terms of the creation of all sorts of technologies and new personal/professional spaces that allow for greater flexibility and control over when, how, and where we work, play, shop, and lived?
Conley:
Definitely, but the skills we need to manage these are new. The ability to multi-task--i.e. attend to several streams of interactive data exchange while not losing any of those threads, is perhaps as important as perisistence, brains or other skills that are prized. I am not trying to be judgemental and make some nostalgic claim that things were "better" in the days of yore; rather, I am merely trying to describe a new social landscape that comes with plusses and minuses.
Nordhaus:
You also write about the rise of the intravidual - about the ways in which the collapse of so many of those dualities has led to a fracturing of the self. Is this really a new development? How is this different than Whitman's observation that we "contain multitudes" penned more than a century ago? Haven't we always contained multitudes and multiple selves?
Conley:
That may be the case. However, I think back then there was still a clear(er) division between front-stage (i.e. public persona) and back-stage (our private self). Today with Facebook updates (and so on), public cell phone conversations, and the blurring of home and work, this dichotomy has eroded, combining with other dynamics I describe in the book, to lead to a greater--perhaps--fragmentation of our consciousness, I argue.
Nordhaus:
How do the social safety net and the institutions necessary for its provision need to evolve to address America's increasingly complex social and economic arrangements?
Conley:
We have to face the fact that the social safety net devised in the 1930s (and even the 1960s amendments) were made in the context of a much less affluent society where household budgets were much more devoted to basic necessities. Today what we "need" is much greater (education, high quality health care, family care and so on) and often relative in nature (better schools -- better than what?). These are much more difficult to provide using the old-school social insurance model.
---
About the book:
Over the past three decades, our daily lives have changed slowly but dramatically. Boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and home and office have blurred and become permeable. How many of us now work from home, our wireless economy allowing and encouraging us to work 24/7? How many of us talk to our children while scrolling through e-mails on our BlackBerrys? How many of us feel overextended, as we are challenged to play multiple roles-worker, boss, parent, spouse, friend, and client-all in the same instant?
Dalton Conley, social scientist and writer provides us with an X-ray view of our new social reality. In Elsewhere, U.S.A., Conley connects our daily experience with occasionally overlooked sociological changes: women's increasing participation in the labor force; rising economic inequality generating anxiety among successful professionals; the individualism of the modern era-the belief in self-actualization and expression-being replaced by the need to play different roles in the various realms of one's existence. In this groundbreaking book, Conley offers an essential understanding of how the technological, social, and economic changes that have reshaped our world are also reshaping our individual lives.
Pelosi's remarks seem to point to a new frame for energy politics which is focused on driving technology innovation and deploying low-carbon technologies.
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Yesterday, in an article in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hometown paper, the San lFrancisco Chronicle, arguably the second-most-powerful person in the country made a significant break from carbon pricing orthodoxy in remarks she made on future cap-and-trade legislation.
"I believe we have to [pass a cap-and-trade bill] because we see that as a source of revenue," she said, noting that proposed cap-and-trade bills would raise billions of dollars by forcing major emitters to buy credits to release greenhouse gases. "Cap-and-trade is there for a reason. You cap and you trade so you can pay for some of these investments in energy independence and renewables."
This description of the reasons for enacting a cap-and-trade scheme is a remarkable--and laudable--shift in climate legislation discourse. Speaker Pelosi's remarks show an increased understanding of the importance of technology investment in reducing carbon emissions and securing energy independence.
Continue reading "Nancy Pelosi: "You Cap so you can Invest"" »
Filed under: Cap-and-trade , Congress , Economy , Energy , Global Warming , Innovation , New Energy Politics , Policy , Pragmatism , Recession , Technology , politics | Permalink
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Obama and other leaders beware: these numbers would seem to point to a very uphill battle for any proposal framed centrally or primarily as a "climate bill," ... Perhaps more crucially, any proposal that can be painted as bad for the economy will also most certainly run right into a brick wall of public opposition.
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Public opinion on global warming lags far behind the rhetoric and apparent commitment shown by President Obama and other elected officials, according to reports today from Andy Revkin at the New York Times (in print and on his DotEarth blog).
"The latest in an annual series of polls from the Pew Research Center on people's top priorities for their elected leaders shows that America and President Obama are completely out of sync on human-caused global warming," Revkin writes, pointing out that "Mr. Obama stressed the [global warming] issue throughout his campaign and several times in his inaugural speech, mentioning stabilizing climate in the same breath as preventing nuclear conflict at one point."
Continue reading "Public Opinion Cool on Global Warming" »
If lawmakers who care about climate change want to achieve anything meaningful politically this year, they must ask themselves one fundamental question: will it pass the Recovery Test?
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According to Talking Points Memo, GOP lawmakers are already laying the groundwork for efforts to delay climate legislation that could be introduced into Congress in 2009. As the GOP's strategy becomes clearer, so to do certain fundamental political truths likely to rule Washington politics for the coming year and beyond.
According to TPM, Republicans are laying seeds of dissent and dissatisfaction regarding Obama's new senior aide for energy and the environment, former Clinton-era EPA head Carol Browner:
"By holding up Jackson and Sutley [Obama's nominees for EPA chief and head of the Council on Environmental Quality], Senate Republicans are doing more than just signaling their discontent that they won't get to question and vote on Browner -- although Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) suggests to the Times that Browner be called in for a "quasi-confirmation" hearing. They're previewing their strategy to knock down the climate regulation bill that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), environment committee chairman, will release later this year.
Here's how it might look: After Boxer's climate bill emerges, Republicans would immediately protest the involvement of Browner, a White House adviser who was never fully vetted by the Senate."
Continue reading "Passing the Recovery Test or: The Basic Political Reality for Climate Legislation in 2009" »
Filed under: Barack Obama , Congress , Economy , Energy , Financial Crisis , Global Warming , New Energy Politics , Policy , Pragmatism , Recession , politics | Permalink
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If you accept that making clean energy cheap should be the primary objective for climate policy, you become largely indifferent about the revenue stream for public technology investments.
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By Teryn Norris & Jesse Jenkins
As the prospects for high carbon pricing and cap and trade continue to diminish in the midst of a severe economic recession, some climate advocates are beginning to wonder: is there any alternative? In a recent op-ed we wrote for the Huffington Post, we argued:
Despite Obama's appointments, climate advocates are thus left to worry: is Obama really prepared to expend his political capital championing a policy that will increase U.S. energy prices in the midst of a recession?
Not likely. Until recently Obama voiced support for carbon regulation, declaring at a governors' climate conference in mid-November that his climate agenda "will start with a federal cap and trade system." But since then, as the recession has deepened, he has said little to nothing about cap and trade...
A serious alternative to cap and trade would focus on making clean energy cheap, prioritizing major, sustained public investments to drive down the price of green technologies as quickly as possible. This would require federal investments on the scale of $500 billion over the next decade to support and accelerate each stage of the energy innovation pipeline: research, development, demonstration, and deployment.
Matthew Yglesias, an author and writer at the Center for American Progress, addressed this issue directly in a post yesterday titled "No Alternative," where he argued there is no better alternative to carbon pricing:
Continue reading "Setting climate priorities straight" »
By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., cross-posted from Prometheus
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Yesterday's Financial Times reported
the results of a new poll that asked people in a number of countries
about what priorities they'd like to see President Obama take on in the
international arena. There is a remarkable degree of congruence across
countries, with (no surprise) the economy in first place everywhere.
Climate change receives considerable support as well, certainly enough
for action to occur. Of course the key question is, what action?
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"In one of its first actions, the Obama administration instructed military prosecutors late Tuesday to seek a 120-day suspension of legal proceedings involving detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- a clear break with the approach of the outgoing Bush administration."
--From the Washington Post story, "Obama Seeks to Halt Legal Proceedings at Guantanamo"
Reading through the section in the stimulus devoted to energy, a glaring lack of spending and the absence of any sort of cohesive guiding framework both give reason for pause.
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Barack Obama has finally been sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America. For once, there is no debate among pundits or Capitol Hill insiders about what Obama's first priority will be as President. It seems like President Obama has been working on crafting an economic stimulus bill since November 5th, and now the real work begins in earnest.
Last week, despite reports from the Congressional Budget Office that our economy will likely face $2 trillion of lost production over the next two years, Obama rolled out a stimulus plan that only spends $825 billion to make up for this gap in production. A summary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, released by the House Appropriations Committee, gives us the first detailed look at how this money will be spent and invested. Reading through the section devoted to energy in particular, a glaring lack of spending and the absence of any sort of cohesive guiding framework both give reason for pause.
Continue reading "Obama Stimulus: For Clean Energy, a Patchwork of Investments" »
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"For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do."
--Barack Obama, in his Inaugural Address
By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., cross posted from Prometheus
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Today's New York Times has an editorial in which it claims that:
The plain truth is that the United States is an
inefficient user of energy. For each dollar of economic product, the
United States spews more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than 75 of
107 countries tracked in the indicators of the International Energy
Agency. Those doing better include not only cutting-edge nations like
Japan but low-tech countries like Thailand and Mexico.
Continue reading "Massive Confusion in the New York Times" »
By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., cross posted from Prometheus
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Yesterday I commented
with a slightly raised eyebrow at comments made by Steven Chu,
President-elect Obama's choice to head DOE, on the future of coal. Dr.
Chu's comments seemed to reflect a much more conciliatory tone toward
coal as a key part of America's energy future. Today's raised eyebrow
comes after reading some comments by Henery Waxman, (D-CA), new
chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as reported in the
E&E ClimateWire:
As the coal industry awaits the first global warming
hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee today, many of its
members are asking, "Which Henry Waxman will show up?"
Continue reading "Coal's Newest Friend" »
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"Basically, it's the Heritage Foundation's Blue Plate Special."
-Nate Silver, on the GOP proposed alternative to Obama's stimulus plan.
The Council on Foreign Relations ran a top story on their homepage today, " Climate Policy in the Age of Obama," that mentioned a recent op-ed by Jesse Jenkins and me in the opening paragraph.
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The Council on Foreign Relations ran a top story on their homepage today, "Climate Policy in the Age of Obama," that mentioned a recent op-ed by Jesse Jenkins and me in the opening paragraph:
The global economic decline has tempered hopes of swift international action on climate change, yet many climate advocates do expect the Obama administration to help boost long-stalled international climate talks (PDF). The announcement of the president-elect's energy and environment team (WSJ) last month reinforced this belief. Among the nominees is Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu, a Nobel-winning physicist and advocate for alternative energy. Chu underscored his concern about climate change and the need for energy efficiency in Senate testimony on January 13. Yet some advocates are worried. "All is well on the climate front, it seems. Except that it's not," write Teryn Norris and Jesse Jenkins of the Breakthrough Institute, a progressive think tank. They warn that President-elect Barack Obama could take the "politically expedient route of short-term green stimulus while ignoring serious climate policy." During the campaign, Obama pledged to use green technologies and renewable energy as a jobs engine, but he also has pledged to mandate a cap-and-trade program.
Continue reading "Climate Policy in the Age of Obama" »
As it becomes clear that chasing an illusory "hard" cap on carbon emissions is a losing proposition, green groups must turn to new strategies to address the urgent threat of climate change.
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The U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of corporations including General Electric and Duke Energy in addition to environmental groups such as the Natural Resource Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund, released a "blueprint" for climate legislation today. Essentially a Cap-and-Trade system, the legislative recommendation reads like a sequel to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.
The report was released today, and already the fallout has perfectly captured the existential moment that the major green groups are experiencing right now in their increasingly urgent efforts to address climate change on a national and global scale.
The defeat of Lieberman-Warner, the oil drilling debate, and global recession have awakened the greens to the immovable political truth that politicians will never enact, and the public will always reject climate legislation that significantly increases energy prices. This truth undermines the power and attraction to cap and trade that has made it the preferred legislation of climate activists for two decades.
Continue reading "Greens Divided by USCAP Proposal: Will They Find Their Way Past the Price Gap?" »
Filed under: Cap-and-trade , Congress , Economy , Energy , Environment , Europe , Global Warming , Innovation , Policy , Recession , politics | Permalink
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It seems that Obama has heeded both Senate Democrats and the many economists who have spoken up, arguing that the President-elect must use each stimulus dollar to create as much wealth as possible.
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Rumblings on Capitol Hill indicate that Barack Obama is backing off some of the more controversial - and potentially least effective - tax cuts that he had planned on fitting in to a stimulus bill. Democrats in both houses viewed the inclusion of so many tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan as an overplay for Republican votes on a critical piece of legislation that could set the tone for the President-elect's subsequent four years in office.
According to the New York Times, Obama now plans to scale back some of the tax cuts and reinvest that money in clean energy incentives:
"After Senate Democrats complained last week that the tax package proposed by the Obama team did not focus enough on job creation or on the energy sector, lawmakers said that the incoming administration had agreed to drop a proposed $3,000 tax credit per new employee and to add more energy-related tax breaks."
Continue reading "Obama Backs Off from Controversial Tax Cuts" »
As if you needed another sign of the political challenges facing a climate strategy centered around dramatically increasing the price of fossil fuels, here you have Dr. Chu, who understands the urgency of the climate challenge better than just about anyone, apparently recognizing that increasing energy prices during a recession just isn't going to happen.
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Confirmations were held today for Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and director of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL). Chu, a clean energy expert, is well known for turning the Berkeley Lab into a center of clean energy and efficiency innovation, forging the Berkeley Lab-British Petroleum partnership, sitting on the Copenhagen Climate Council, and winning a Nobel Prize in physics in 1997.
Suffice it to say that Chu has a deep and nuanced grasp of the many variables and drivers that contribute to global warming and he understands the scale of the challenge as well as anyone. As an administrator at LBNL, Dr. Chu worked to secure increased funding for research in clean energy and efficiency. And as an academic, Chu was able to speak candidly--and in fact, quite bluntly--about energy and climate issues.
Not any more! Dr. Chu has arrived inside the Beltway now, and already his tone is changing...
Continue reading "Inside the Beltway, No Coal Nightmares or Gas Taxes for Steven Chu" »
Filed under: Barack Obama , Congress , Economy , Energy , Environment , Global Warming , Innovation , New Energy Politics , Policy , Pragmatism , Recession , Technology , development , politics | Permalink
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It seems that the end of oil may not necessarily mean the end of a Middle East grip on the pocketbooks of the developed world.
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Clean energy advocates who are motivated to transition from oil for reasons of national security have a new reason to lobby for clean technology innovation in America:
"[E]ven as President-elect Barack Obama talks about promoting green jobs as America's route out of recession, gulf states, including the emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are making a concerted push to become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy."
It seems that Middle Eastern states that enjoy a high standard of living due to their thriving oil industries have recognized that due to rising population, societal change and global warming, oil will not be the fuel of the future. And they are taking steps to build new energy industries. The Times article reports that entities in Middle East petro-states are investing in things like alternative energy, carbon capture and low carbon cement on the order billions of dollars:
Continue reading "Middle Eastern Petro-States Seek to Broaden Energy Exports" »
By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., cross posted from Prometheus
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The graph below shows relative improvements in carbon dioxide emissions for four countries (from the U.S. Energy Information Agency) per national GDP (as measured in PPP terms and reported by Maddison). The data starts in 1991, selected because it is the first year that the EIA reports total emissions for reunified Germany.
Continue reading "Relative Improvements in CO2 Per GDP" »
The goal of a "stimulus" is to put the economy back on the path it was on before the downturn started. But this should not be the goal of Obama's economic plan--to return us to the time when college grads went to Wall Street to make a quick buck by trading back and forth on dubious mortgages.
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Last week, Obama announced his stimulus package, a plan to spend nearly 800 billion dollars on infrastructure projects, modernizing schools and health records, expanding clean energy production, providing much-needed relief for state budgets, and extending tax cuts to 95% of working Americans.
By most standards, this is a big stimulus plan that could do a lot to bolster confidence, increase consumer spending and unfreeze credit. And yet, as Paul Krugman put it last week,
"To close a gap of more than $2 trillion -- possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic -- Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that's not enough.
... The bottom line is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job."
Continue reading "On Obama's Stimulus: Don't Look Back, Forge Ahead to a New Century of Prosperity" »
Filed under: Barack Obama , Congress , Economy , Education , Energy , Financial Crisis , Health care , Innovation , Policy , Recession , Stimulus , Taxation , Technology , politics | Permalink
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By Breakthrough Senior Fellow Roger Pielke, jr., cross posted from Prometheus
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The figure below shows the relationship of carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels (with data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency) with global GDP (as measured in PPP terms and reported by Maddison).
A few things stand out.
Continue reading "Carbon Dioxide and the Global Economy" »
There is still a lot of public relations work needing to be done to articulate to Americans the proper role of government in times of economic crisis.
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Yesterday, Barack Obama introduced some of the basic priorities and projects of the stimulus plan he will work to enact in his first few weeks as President. From traditional infrastructure projects like road and bridge repair to R&D in energy and health sciences, the package includes a wide range of public spending projects. In addition, the package also includes budget relief for state governments, and a $1000 dollar tax cut for 95% of working American families.
A recent poll commissioned by Politico showed that 79 percent of respondents favor Obama's proposal. This makes sense--unemployment is rising, home values are on the decline, and everyone is worried about their savings. But how deeply rooted is public support for a nearly trillion dollar stimulus? The same poll illuminates a degree of cognitive dissonance in the public's thinking about the economy that might undermine long term support for any next steps Obama takes.
Continue reading "How Deep is Public Support for Obama's Stimulus?" »
Prepared by Jesse Jenkins. ( PDF)
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Calling 2009 a "clean break from a troubled past," Barack Obama today announced his priorities for an economic stimulus package.
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In Northern Virginia today, President-elect Barack Obama addressed the nation, introducing a few basic goals and guidelines for an economic stimulus package that could cost as much as a trillion dollars.
Well aware that the large price tag on the stimulus, referred to as the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan," Obama included language about setting a foundation for economic growth now in order to return to a place of fiscal responsibility as the economy gets back on its feet. However, Obama was not shy about the need for the government to step in and spend, now:
"It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy - where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit."
Continue reading "Obama's Stimulus Plan: A Foundation for Growth?" »
Filed under: Barack Obama , Congress , Economy , Education , Energy , Financial Crisis , Global Warming , Health care , Innovation , Policy , Recession , Security , Stimulus , Taxation , Technology , politics | Permalink
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"That work begins with this plan - a plan I am confident will save or create at least three million jobs over the next few years. It is not just another public works program. It's a plan that recognizes both the paradox and the promise of this moment - the fact that there are millions of Americans trying to find work, even as, all around the country, there is so much work to be done. That's why we'll invest in priorities like energy and education; health care and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century."
-President-elect Barack Obama, while addressing the country about his economic stimulus plan, "American Recovery and Reinvestment."
A cautionary note about losing sight of climate objectives amidst all the fervor about green jobs and green stimulus. ... Jesse Jenkins and Teryn Norris in the Huffington Post.
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The Huffington Post has featured an op-ed by me and Jesse Jenkins, "The Danger of Green Stimulus," which issues a cautionary note about losing sight of climate objectives amidst all the fervor about green jobs and green stimulus:
The Danger of Green Stimulus
By Teryn Norris and Jesse Jenkins
The Huffington Post
January 5th, 2009
Barack Obama's final appointments in December indicate a strong commitment to action on climate change. Steven Chu as Energy Secretary, Carol Browner as Energy & Climate Czar, John Holdren as Assistant for Science and Technology -- just to name a few recent selections -- are all proponents of vigorous action to cut U.S. global warming pollution and take leadership on a new international climate treaty. And Hilda Solis, Obama's new Labor Secretary, is a champion of "green jobs."
All is well on the climate front, it seems. Except that it's not.
Carbon cap and trade regulation remains the top federal policy priority for the majority of environmental groups. But in June, cap and trade legislation failed in the Senate, and sixteen Democratic Senators from coal and manufacturing-heavy states voiced their opposition to high carbon pricing. The policy faces even greater obstacles in today's economic climate, since it would increase the energy bills of the American public.
Continue reading "The Danger of Green Stimulus" »
Filed under: Barack Obama , Cap-and-trade , Economy and Social Policy , Energy , Europe , Global Warming , Innovation , Policy , Special Innovation Issue , Stimulus , U.S. Energy and Climate Policy | Permalink
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Innovation is an incredible driver of long term economic growth, making it the right candidate for a smart stimulus.
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On January 21st, immediately after assuming office, Barack Obama's first priority will be passing an economic stimulus package that will provide the economic kick-in-the-pants necessary to avoid the next Great Depression. There's nearly unanimous consensus that a major stimulus investment is needed to stave off economic disaster. How the next administration plans to fit this stimulus into a larger economic revitalization plan, however, is still unclear.
So far, there's plenty of focus on traditional methods of stimulus: tax cuts to spur consumer spending and traditional infrastructure investments to rebuild roads and bridges. Unfortunately, a short-term focus on roads and rebates won't be enough to stave off a new depression or put our economy back on track. Instead, we must focus on investments that can both act as short-term stimulus and improve the long-term productivity of the US economy. And that means investing in innovation.
As Janet Rae-Dupree wrote in the New York Times on Saturday:
Continue reading "Forget Roads and Rebates: Why the Stimulus Should Invest in Innovation and Productivity" »
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"The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed public spending justify its costs -- a burden of proof never imposed on proposals for tax cuts.
This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for public investment "which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict 'business' principles." "
-Paul Krugman
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