“So part of what we are hoping is that as countries think about what each can do, investing in clean, renewable energy is a win-win. It puts people to work and it cuts energy costs over the long run. Dealing with the effects of climate change, reforesting areas. I think of Haiti again. Reforesting the watersheds in Haiti will save Haiti money if we can figure out a plan to be able to do that.“
"No new source, no new generation, but just use more efficiently what we currently have.”
Secretary of State Hilary Clinton
Digital Town Hall at Funglode
April 17th, 2009
What Secretary Clinton has missed is that the US has accomplished this already. Energy consumption per dollar of real (inflation adjusted) GDP has fallen by forty percent since 1980 and that the downtrend is expected to continue at the same rate for the next twenty years. Most, if not all, of the energy use increase in recent decades has been due to population growth, not economic growth. Household energy consumption has remained more or less flat. This, despite the growth of household electronics.
James Carson, http://www.RisQuant.com JBCarson@RisQuant.com
Will total energy demand increase with energy efficiency in all uses or will electricity demand increase as the liquid supply transportation demand decreases as it is transfered? I hope that electric mass transit will also increase relative to personal transportation, helping total energy demand decrease. In addition, I also hope that physical transportation is reduced as we shift to telepresence and new ICT innovations.
What you wrote seems a sure way to a global combined financial, economic, energy, and environmental systemic crisis. All ecosystem services in land, air, water, etc. can't take those impacts. That is why we need fundamental reform of the financial, health, utility industries in a new order. The EWPC framework is a mean to that end for electricity.
I guess that we are bound to use more efficiently the energy sources we currently have all over the world. The concept refers essentially to having energy efficiency as one of the key elements of the clean energy mix.
Jose Antonio,
"State Secretary H. R. Clinton said in Santo Domingo last friday ""No new source, no new generation, but just use more efficiently what we currently have." You are missing that in your argument."
Secretary Clinton is trying to comprehend the forest by looking at only one tree at a time. She is a politician. She is not a futurist. She is not a strategic thinker. She is not a big picture person. She is not an engineer. She is not a capitalist.
Increased efficiency has a place. Conservation has a place. Solar and wind have a place. A lower standard of living will not be accepted voluntarily, though history suggests that it can be forced, as appears to be the case in Venezuela today.
Madam Secretary ignores the Administration's "80% by 2050" wish. Realizing that wish with "no new source, no new generation", when 70% of generation is fossil-based is delusional. Doing so in the face of ~1.3% annual population growth merely adds to the delusion.
In the words of my favorite American philosopher, Yogi Berra: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." The Obama Administration is clearly on the road to somewhere. Eventually we will find out where "somewhere" is.
Madam Secretary is just explaining how valuable energy efficiency is. In my latest response to William Norquay, I wrote: "I guess that we are bound to use more efficiently the energy sources we currently have all over the world. The concept refers essentially to having energy efficiency as one of the key elements of the clean energy mix."
This is a transcript of the corresponding section of the Digital Town Hall
The next question will be placed by Ariel Roberto Contreras Medos in the Dominican Republic.
QUESTION: (Via interpreter.) In spite of the agreements achieved, especially in the framework of the Fifth Summit of the Americas and in reference to the promotion of sustainable environment, what initiatives will be taken to guarantee the implementation of the agreements achieved?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, let me say that first of all, the United States, with the new Administration, has recognized our responsibility as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. This is an abrupt change from the prior administration. It enables us to take the problem of climate change and sustainable development seriously and begin to address it.
Secondly, President Obama is committed to pursuing domestic legislation that will equip the United States to play our role in combating greenhouse gas emissions. In the stimulus package that President Obama introduced and that was passed, we had a lot of money set aside for renewable energy, to begin becoming more energy efficient, to refit – retrofit houses and commercial buildings, to weatherize them, to take what are long overdue steps to begin to do our part. We also are looking at an economy-wide approach with a cap-and-trade system that we think makes a lot of sense, that would enable us to reduce our emissions significantly by – we hope 80 percent by 2050.
Thirdly, we are very actively engaged in the international arena. There will be the summit on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of this year. The President and I jointly appointed a Special Envoy for Climate Change who's working with his counterparts around the world. We are going to do everything we can to get an agreement that includes everybody. Nobody can be left out. There may be different requirements and maybe different timetables for developing countries and for the developed world, but everybody must be in the agreement. And we've had very productive conversations with a number of nations from China to Russia to the European Union and beyond.
And let me just say a word about some of the steps that can be taken by countries in this hemisphere. We've got to stop the destruction of the rainforest. The destruction of the rainforest is a double whammy. It reduces our capacity in the world through what has been referred to as the lungs that the rainforest represent to absorb carbon dioxide. And the substituted uses of the land, primarily for agriculture, emit more greenhouse gas emissions. So we have to do more to figure how to protect these very precious resources that are within national boundaries, but have global consequences.
We also have to do more to help all of us become energy efficient. The cost of electricity, however it is generated, is a significant drain on both family and government resources. How do we get more energy efficiency? We believe, in the United States, that we could go a long way toward meeting our global goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions if we were more energy efficient. No new source, no new generation, but just use more efficiently what we currently have. So we will be discussing this at the summit. We're going to be looking to work with our partners in the region to chart a clear path toward a low carbon economy for the future.
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