Posted by admin in Green Articles, Green Leaders, featured | 0 Comments
World leaders convene in Washington to discuss clean technology
This week government and industry leaders from more than 20 countries will converge on Washington, D.C., to discuss how governments can work together to spur spending on clean energy technology, the New York Times reports.
Participants in the inaugural Clean Energy Ministerial – whose countries produce 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – will gather to discuss ways to promote clean energy investments such as biofuels, low-emissions coal, marine turbines and photovoltaics in the private sector, the paper writes.
The meeting comes after last year’s Major Economies Forum on Energy in Climate in Italy, during which the United States, China, India, Russia and a dozen other nations proposed to double investment in clean technologies by 2015. However, no formal commitment was made.
While it remains to be seen whether ministers will commit any additional funding, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu emphasized that the goal of the meeting would not be discussion. "Our goal is to take concrete actions," he told the Times.
Recently, Chu met with corporate leaders and reiterated previous recommendations such as painting rooftops white to reflect solar heat, installing smart-grid technology in commercial and residential buildings and establishing a tax on carbon emissions.
Tom Connelly, DuPont’s chief innovation officer, supported the tax and other public incentives, such as feed-in tariffs for manufacturers and consumers of renewable energy technologies, to help reduce emissions. "We are in favor of steps that attribute a cost to carbon emissions," he told the Times.
According to the paper, the International Energy Agency told ministers that the world will need to invest $46 trillion in clean technology alone by 2050 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 14 gigatons. However, the price is estimated to increase by $500 billion annually for every year governments fail to act.
Already, the U.S. Department has announced progress, the paper reports. In partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and more than a dozen countries and companies, the U.S. will launch the Global Superior Energy Performance Partnership to assist large buildings and industrial facilities in reducing their energy use through painting "cool" roofs and installing technology to monitor energy use.
Related Posts
