If we aim high
The Plan to Save the World
by
Rebecca Leber
These are the last four paragraphs of a very informative article.
The most optimistic feature of Paris is that negotiations no longer exist in a vacuum. Indeed, the economic landscape has shifted since the 2009 Copenhagen conference, when the hope of addressing climate change appeared to be lost. Global investment in clean energy has jumped from $45 billion to $270 billion in the last ten years and will grow as more and more countries institute a price on carbon, as dozens already have. Clean energy still has a long way to go—the United States currently gets just 13 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, including hydropower—but the pace of change is startling
And solar is the brightest story. The price of solar energy has dropped 78 percent since Obama took office. Even without federal policies that offer generous tax breaks for clean energy, the United States is poised for a revolution "when solar becomes that technology of choice," explained Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst William Nelson. The price of wind energy has also dropped 58 percent. The switch to renewables is having a significant impact. In 2014, the global economy grew by 3 percent, but world emissions remained flat—exactly the sort of trend that needs to continue if the world is to keep growing without spinning into a death spiral.
Meanwhile, the coal industry is facing a steady stream of bad news. The symbolic movement to divest from fossil fuel assets hit $2.6 trillion in pledges this year, 50 times more than where it was a year ago, exceeding even activists' expectations. The boom in natural gas development has eaten into coal's prominence as a power source, and cheap clean energy and federal regulations have also contributed to the largest wave of closed-down coal plants the United States has ever seen. Global leaders don't have to convince the world that renewable energy is the future. They just need to hasten that future along
If they succeed, the world will look dramatically different even in our own lifetimes. Billions of young trees will help take carbon out of the air, as reforestation efforts make headway. The sun could be our single largest energy provider, up from just 0.5 percent globally today. Sunny cities will have solar panels lining rooftops as far as the eye can see. We won't be debating whether to build new pipelines to carry oil from coast to coast, but where to locate the next wind farm. In the United States alone, the oil rigs that dot the landscape in Texas and North Dakota could give way to sprawling fields of turbines. If that happens, we could look back at the Paris talks as the moment that truly made the future possible.
When Rebecca Leber says this, my first reaction was huh? don't they? They should.
Global leaders don't have to convince the world that renewable energy is the future. They just need to hasten that future along.
..But since actions are needed more than words, let's get behind that as a first step and keep pushing to build on the
momentum. Especially if the part of "the world" in question that needs convincing is dirty energy extraction industries. We've wasted enough time on them already. Let the continued loss of profits on carbon based energy investments into the future do the convincing on the global scale. But here at home, let's go beyond the voluntary.
Why? because this:
Most of the potential disagreements in Paris are likely to fall along familiar fault lines: whether targets for cutting emissions should be binding, and which countries should bear the most responsibility.
The EU, for example, has pushed for a treaty with legally binding targets. But for other nations, including the United States and India, such a requirement is a nonstarter.
Their reasons differ: For the United States, the Obama administration is politically constrained by a Republican-controlled Senate that will not ratify any such treaty, while India is afraid to harm a growing economy.
In theory, an agreement could have some legally binding element that requires countries to implement or ratchet up future ambitions, but there's little consensus on what exactly should meet strict expectations.
emphasis added
Convincing fossil fuel industries to power-down using the "conservative market approach" may be the most feasible avenue globally, but as a catalyst and a blueprint to convince other nations that we, the US, is serious about environmental solutions is to enact laws that are not voluntary here in the US. Reject the "conservative" market based angle as the core method to reducing carbon emissions
Go beyond championing voluntary commitments. Stop shying away from enforceability-based approaches, that for so many years have been the target of the "conservative" movement - climate denying - fossil fuel shills over the years.
The republican's market-friendly cap-and-trade to profit-driven corporate idea is a perfect example of how the climate denying extraction industries and their advocates (republicans) put up firewalls to environmental protections - and yet label it progress. Offer up a "conservative" compromise (Cap-and Trade) to halt momentum when they're losing ground to the will of the people, then at the same time and for the following years demonize the compromise as "over-burdensome regulation" and "job killing government intervention" to reverse the momentum and sway people away by fear-mongering propaganda
Also too - reporting requirements and transparency is very important along with always aiming higher instead of allowing for the republicans to once again make it a race to the bottom.
We Dems could do our own "over-reaching" - we've already been accused and convicted of it - so do it :)
On the Road to Paris 2015 (calendar) | COP21/CMP11
- I've got to step away for a bit & hope this information is helpful :)