The President was on target during his speech on climate change at Georgetown University when he announced new initiatives to curb the release of greenhouse gases and thereby slow down the effects of climate change. However, a key aspect to meeting this huge challenge is to set national goals based on specific timetables. Without President Kennedy setting a goal to land an American on the moon by a specific date, it is doubtful that we would have ever achieved this.
President Obama’s goal-setting in his recent speech was incomplete and rather imbalanced. There was a goal to double renewable energy on federal lands, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17% relative to year 2005 is often referred to as a goal for the year 2020. But without a goal with a specific date and a specific action to be accomplished, a project of this great magnitude is unlikely to develop a meaningful action plan and may never be implemented. The President needs to go beyond this first important speech and provide these missing goals, along with directives to different federal agencies, such as the Department of Energy, to require them to develop action plans on what needs to be done to achieve such goals.
Should there be goals for energy conservation and nuclear power, which today produces about two thirds of the carbon free electricity in this country? Should we not have a goal, by 2020, to get our energy input per unit of GDP down to levels achieved by other industrialized nations? Are there other goals that should be included?
Dr. Specter thinks that the Obama climate plan will produce disappointing results. I would agree, but his prescription seems to be more state planning, more numerical targets, and more timetables.… Read more »
I agree that regulation is not the right way to approach the problem of carbon emissions. The right way follows from recognition that there are serious long term external costs… Read more »
First, in the first topic question I’d prefer using the term “energy efficiency” or “energy productivity” rather than “conservation” since the latter to some still brings to mind doing without… Read more »
I agree with Rodney that energy productivity or efficiency should be the metric, since there are plenty of means for leveraging our use of energy such that we waste much,… Read more »
For SmartPlanet this week, I put President Obama’s new climate plan into context of the data on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. I concluded that it offers some steps in the… Read more »
Roger Arnold, Rodney Sobin, and I agree that other policy tools could, in principle, have achieved the President’s climate goals at lower cost than the ones that he has adopted.… Read more »
“Net costs to the US!” Oh no. Yeah, cleaning up the atmosphere ought to be free for “us”, like the cost of ruining it in the first place. The better… Read more »
Mr. Lane suggests that we American’s have accrued no debt to the global population despite having consumed energy at levels that are hardly imaginable for us going forward – let… Read more »
The New York Times has published the thoughts of Secretary of Energy Moniz on achieving the President’s goals on reducing greenhouse gases [LINK]. Of particular interest is Moniz’s views on… Read more »
Were the actual present state of radiation effects science and very large scale epidemiological results from all three, occupational, medical and even post-accident exposures taken into account in the regulatory… Read more »
America is so blessed with our abundance of Natural Gas. The other great thing about natural gas is how efficiently this clean combusting Natural Gas can be consumed. The residential… Read more »
There is an old saying that a goal without a plan is merely a dream. While I applaud the President’s goal to deal effectively with the impacts of climate change,… Read more »