Today, the Center for American Progress (CAP) released a Policy Paper titled "10 Steps to a Low-Carbon Economy" as part of their series "Progressive Growth; Transforming America’s Economy Through Clean Energy Innovation and Opportunity." They have also created a video to accompany the paper.
In an indication that trying to get any action out of the current administration is a lost cause, the paper is directed at the next administration and its policy makers.
The 10 steps advocated include:
- Create a green-house gas emissions cap-and-trade program
- Eliminate Federal tax breaks and subsidies for gas and oil industries
- Increase vehicle fuel economy
- 40 mpg by 2020, 55 mpg by 2030
- Increase production and availability of alternative low-carbon fuels
- 25% of our nation’s transportation fuels by 2025
- Reduce lifecycle emissions from transportation fuels by 10% by 2020
- 15% of fuel "pumps" (including dedicated electricity charging stations for plug-in hybrid vehicles) provide low-carbon alternative fuels in any county in the U.S. where 15% of vehicles can run on these alternative fuels.
- Invest in low-carbon mass transportation infrastructure
- Improve efficiency in energy generation, transmission and consumption
- 10% energy savings through efficiency upgrades by 2020
- Increase production of renewable electricity
- Use carbon capture-and-storage systems for carbon emissions from coal
- Create a White House National Energy Council
- Create an Energy Innovation Council
- Create an Energy Technology Corporation
- Create a Clean Energy Investment
- Create a Clean Energy Jobs Corp
- Lead efforts to advance international global warming policies
Yesterday, I interviewed Kit Batten, Managing Direct of Energy and Environmental Policy for CAP to talk about some of the recommendations they are making for the environmental blog Celsias. You can read that interview here. Essentially, I asked her for some clarifications on some of the more controversial components of their proposal, such as advocating biofuels and ethanol (they do, but only those that are the lowest carbon emitting from production through use). I also wanted to know how all of this would be funded. They are coming out with a detailed budget over the next couple of weeks, but she assured me that every program they recommend is funded through the revenue from carbon emission cap-and-trade auctions ($75 billion annually) and from repealing the subsidies and tax breaks for gas and oil companies (another $6 billion annually). She also confirmed that Hillary Clinton has adopted parts of previously released CAP recommendations, including developing an E-8, modeled on the G-8 to address global warming and putting in place a White House National Energy Council with a direct line to the President which I wrote about here. In fact, she mentioned that all the front running Democratic candidates seem to already be adopting many of their recommendations.
I have also been reading and writing about some very depressing reports on climate change, the GEO-4, the recent Friends of the Earth International Report, and it’s all incredibly depressing. And then there are these knuckle heads on Digg and Reddit that write comments that global warming is a hoax on every article that covers the science of it and try to suppress the articles by giving them negative ratings. A change in attitude and administration really can’t come soon enough, not just for us, but for the entire planet.