Climate Change

Garrett Fitzgerald is the sustainability coordinator for the city of Oakland, and says Solar Mosaic is a great alternative for people who are passionate about renewable energy, but do not have the financial or logistical capacity to install their own solar system. He said they are a model for combining social good with economic benefit. “These kinds of companies are the future of the green economy in Oakland,” Fitzgerald said. Read the full story

In 2009, President Barack Obama and leaders of other developed countries committed to mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries confront climate change. However, in an era of fiscal austerity, it is clear that national contributions will need to be supplemented by innovative sources of finance to meet this goal. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund recently released a report on how the shipping industry could be one of these innovative sources of financing.

"Our interest is to push energy efficiency as rapidly as we can to address very, very serious problems of climate change," competition organizer Karina Garbesi said. Read the full story and watch a video

"Photovoltaic manufacturers are increasingly reporting health, safety, and sustainability metrics on their websites and within annual reports. However, too many solar manufacturers are still unwilling to share their emissions information," said SVTC Research Scientist Dustin Mulvaney, who contributed to the Scorecard survey. "Part of a solar manufacturer's value proposition to its customers is its environmental credentials. Those who are transparent and make a genuine investment will be rewarded with consumer confidence."

The Obama Administration’s preliminary decision to impose a 31 per cent tariff on solar panels imported from China is short sighted. The move could cause a trade war, hurt the US economy, jeopardize US security interests, and put the world further off course in terms of meeting its global climate change goals.

At the Commerce Department, I have the privilege to serve as Secretary Bryson's senior policy adviser on energy and environment issues.

In 2010 and 2011, Republicans and Democrats proposed mandating clean power generation in the electricity sector. To evaluate public support for a national clean energy standard (NCES), we conducted a nationally representative survey that included randomized treatments on the sources of eligible power generation and programme costs. We find that the average US citizen is willing to pay US$162 per year in higher electricity bills (95% confidence interval: US$128–260), representing a 13% increase, in support of a NCES that requires 80% clean energy by 2035.

"This set of studies from around the world is a wake-up call," said Rebecca Shaw, a climate scientist and associate vice president for Environmental Defense Fund. "The truth is that we have been struggling to conserve the nature we depend on for clean air and clean water without climate change. These studies show it is going to get harder and more costly to conserve nature in the future.

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