Geoff Cutmore, Squawk Box anchor for CNBC and host of Energy Opportunities highlights the thoughts of some of the key voices in energy innovation.

With a growing global population, growth in energy use is inevitable. Experts are grappling for the best way to manage resources, often adopting new technologies to increase the production of low carbon fuel sources. This is no easy task and something that is one of the principal challenges being discussed on Energy Opportunities, a global brainstorm to explore the energy options of the future.

Sachs on bringing sustainable energy to the developing world
In building for a sustainable future, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Economist and Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University recently argued that there is no development without electricity. He noted that well over a billion people worldwide have no access to electricity and that until they do, they won’t be able to access high living standards or sustained economic growth.

Sachs finds energy solutions for the world a vast challenge – mainly because we need energy supplies that are secure, but also environmentally safe and low in carbon emissions. This transition to a low carbon economy for the world means the mobilization of new technologies and new kinds of energy sources.

Sachs does however note that there is a clear opportunity for developing countries to build systems that generate electricity from scratch in an environmentally friendly manner. Again, this is by no means an easy proposition. Mobilizing technology, re-thinking systems, global financing and social policies that bridge the gap between the rich and the poor are all pieces of a complex mix. But the puzzle needs to be solved, because it is crucial to global development.

Bazerman on clearing the hurdles to innovation
Innovation will play a key role in improving the world’s approach to energy, but as Max Bazerman, Professor at Harvard University and the Harvard Business School, recently pointed out there are many psychological barriers to action in this area. Scientists and policy makers have come up with great ideas to improve energy efficiency; Bazerman notes three problems in the way of progress :

1. Research demonstrates that people far too often focus their attentions on short term considerations, despite contentions that they want to leave the world in a good condition for future generations.
2. We interpret events in a self-serving manner that leads us to expect others to do more to solve energy problems. For example, emerging nations blame the west for its excessive energy consumption; while the US government blames China and India for failing to adopt smarter energy innovations
3. Positive illusions lead us to think that energy problems don’t exist or are not severe enough for us to action. In other words we stick our heads in the sand. These illusions are responsible for reducing the quality of the decision making in how to innovate and improve the situation through new technologies.

This calls for us to recognize and overcome barriers to action and encourage leaders to remove these challenges so that the fundamental changes can be made to the way we approach energy technology.

Lomborg on innovating the price of green technologies
The price of innovation is another key concern. With politicians incentivised to meet minimum emission targets, Bjørn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, has recently pointed out that we could be wasting large sums of money on reducing carbon emissions by only a few tonnes rather than preparing for a truly low carbon future. A small number of solar panels and wind turbines may be a step in the right direction, but do not provide a full response to how sustainable clean energy solutions can be properly applied.

Innovating the price of green technology would help prevent this from continuing. The best way to make this happen is to stop investment in ineffective policies that have been followed for the past twenty years and look at allocating more resource into scientific research that breed game changing solutions.

Understanding the barriers to innovation
There is clearly an opportunity to innovate the way energy production and consumption is managed. However the first step in making new sustainable, low carbon alternatives a reality is understanding the very barriers that are preventing innovative solutions from being adopted on a widespread basis.

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A new UN report warns that humans could triple the natural resources they consume by 2050 unless economic growth is “decoupled” from current consumption rates.

In developed nations, individuals consume an average of 16 tons per capita of minerals, ores, fossil fuels, and biomass each year, and as much as 40 or more tons per capita in some nations, according to the report by the UN Environmental Program’s International Resources Panel.

That rate doubled from 1900 to 2000. By comparison, the average person in India consumes about 4 tons annually.

Warning that global population growth and rising economic prosperity could drive resource consumption “far beyond what is likely sustainable,” the report says nations must improve the rate of resource productivity or do more with less, particularly as many resources are already being depleted at a significant rate.

The panel also suggests more investment in technological, financial, and social innovation to at least freeze per capita consumption.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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Gas prices continue to rise at local gas stations. I generally try to stay on the sidelines of politics, but simply cannot do so anymore. The partisan bickering is Washington is enough to give anyone a headache.

Last week, House Majority Leader John Boehner suggested that incentives for the oil industry ought to be put on the table as part of the discussion of future budget battles. When President Obama called him out on this very issue later in the week, the Majority Leader reverted back to supporting the oil companies and once again removed reducing incentives from consideration.

While the politicians were debating incentives for the oil industry, oil executives were defending record profits and placing the blame on federal and state gas taxes in order to deflect critics. Federal and state gas taxes have remained largely flat during the most recent run-up in gas prices. Funds raised through these taxes pay for the construction of roads, bridges, and highways. Some revenue, albeit a minimal amount, is spent for mass transportation.

While Congress was in recess last week, the realities of the recent budget battles have come to light. The EPA’s budget was cut by $1.6 billion for the remainder of the year. The Energy Information Administration’s budget was cut by $15.2 million for the remainder of the year. What this signifies is a step by step approach by the Republican Congress to starve important energy and environmentally conscious agencies of funding at a time when they need it most.

Has the environment somehow become an enemy of the Republican Party? The EPA was formed under the Nixon Administration. When it was formed, it was out of concern for the chemicals and other pollutants that were being released into the air and an interest in preserving wildlife and their natural habitats in the U.S.
However much we would prefer to be devoid of government regulation, the simple fact remains that if we were to operate in a laissez-faire world, pollution would be far worse, cars would not be as safe as they are today, and our food supply would not be as safe as it is. In the words of one of our founding fathers, James Madison, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

History is replete with leaders telling us that we need to take care of our environment. Whether it was Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900’s, Nixon, Ford, and Carter in the 1970’s, or more recently, Clinton, Gore, and Obama, the warning has been clear. Take care of the environment, rely less on oil, gas, and coal, and pursue renewable forms of energy.

The assault on the environment, climate change, and clean technology by the Republican Party is an insult to Americans of all generations. If we are taught in school to learn from history and the mistakes of the past, why do our leaders consistently fail to right the ship? One obvious concern is the relationship between money and politics. Maybe watchdog groups should tweet every time oil, gas, and coal companies donate to our politicians and lobbyists “suggest” legislation on behalf of their clients that adversely affects the environment, climate change, and clean technology.

The great political marketing machine will tell you that more regulation of the environment will negatively affect economic growth. However, green jobs, whether they are “green collar” jobs or “green white collar” jobs are growing.

Political leaders are not the only ones to blame. We are to blame as well. Not only do we support politicians who continue to insult our intelligence, our own behavior contributes to some of the problems we face today.

A true revolution in the creation of clean energy needs to be embraced, with which an effort to understand the complex environmental issues of our time needs to be made. Once we have accomplished this, we can finally negotiate in good faith regarding the environment and our energy needs.

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Adapting to Climate Change is a reassuring sounding title, but the content of this book makes it clear that there will be nothing straightforward or easy as human communities try to ready themselves for the coming climate crisis. Editors Neil Adger, Irene Lorenzoni and Karen O’Brien have been doing on research in the area for a number of years and worked closely together in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report on adaptation. They convened a conference in 2008 at the Royal Geographical Society in London and the resulting papers are the basis of this book, now published in a paperback edition.

It’s the social and political dimensions of adapting to climate change that the book is mainly concerned with. The 31 papers are grouped around the three headings which form the sub-title of the book: Thresholds, Values, Governance. The thresholds chapters consider a variety of situations. One paper looks at how human modification of ecosystem services, as in agriculture, can reduce adaptation capacity, suggesting that building ecological resilience may be an important contribution to successful adaptation (and mitigation). Another considers the potential engineering adaptations to protect London from flooding across the thresholds of stages of increase in sea level rise, emphasizing the need to be prepared well in advance for the trajectory of the risk; 5.75 meters is considered the end point for engineering adaptations. The puzzling extinction of the Norse Greenland settlement in the 15th century which figured dramatically in Jared Diamond’s book Collapse is the subject of a paper. It suggests a different conclusion from that explored by Diamond, but certainly some threshold factors, whatever they were, put an end to what appears to have been a successful centuries-long adaptation. In present time the capacity of an Inuit community in Arctic Canada to adapt to major changes in their ice environment raises threshold questions not only about the physical challenges, but also the impact on their cultural and community life.

The papers which discuss values are often a reminder that adaptation is undertaken by communities of people with cultural values and human rights that not only need to be respected but may also be the source of important input into the adaptive processes. One paper looks at a community of alpaca herders in the Peruvian Andes threatened by glacier retreat and the associated availability of water – their collective orientation and concern with continuity rather than economic growth is apparent in their discussions about how best to manage their future. Interviews with elderly people in the UK about their perception of and coping strategies for hot weather revealed how difficult it can be for many of them to perceive their vulnerability and think of being proactive in relation to heat waves. Another paper asks what an agricultural community does when it becomes apparent that building resilience to climate threats may mean moving away from short-term technological fixes and settling for a lower production level and lower returns. A flooding event in Boscastle, Cornwall is examined in a paper which suggests that there were adaptive strategies well understood by local people in the past which subsequent development of the village overlooked, leading to flooding consequences that might have been much less serious if the local knowledge had not been lost. Relocation may be a possible, if drastic, adaptive response and one of the papers explores why that option was taken by some in drought-stricken Oklahoma in the 1930s and rejected by others. In general this section of the book digs away at the cultural factors which guide people as they make difficult decisions and changes, and the relative flexibility they display.

The values considerations impact on the governance issues associated with adaptation. One paper argues that adaptation must go beyond the laundry lists of potential options and constraints and beyond simplistic assertions that technology, information and money will sufficiently serve the purpose; the social dynamics of governance structures must also be understood and examined. Another paper reports a scheme in the Brazilian province of Ceará seeking to enable local participation in adaptation to drought conditions and to bring those marginalized by the prevailing patron-client governance into the public arena where their voice can be heard directly and the planning process thereby made more effective. Planning for adaptation to changing coastlines raises large governance questions as to how the people profoundly affected by coastal erosion and flooding can be properly engaged in the difficult decisions ahead, an issue addressed by one paper in relation to England’s east coast. On an international level cooperation between states in trans-boundary water management is already important and will only become more so as climate change progresses, an issue explored by one of the papers. The governance of adaptation funding for developing countries is a question of great importance for those countries and a chapter looks at the need for efficiency and fairness and responsiveness in the administration of that funding.

The book is not one of cheering examples of successful adaptation efforts, or of prescriptions of future adaptation measures. If there are prescriptions indicated they are more concerned with the underlying social and political factors which will need to be part of effective adaptation. It’s not a simple matter of applying the right technology or the correctly chosen course of action to achieve the necessary changes. That will be part of the picture, of course, but it is people and communities of people who have to adapt, and try to hold on to what they value as human beings and cultural groupings as they do so. The social sciences come into play and this book gives an indication of the wide front on which social researchers are operating and what their understandings have to offer. It’s an impressive array. The papers are specialized and directed mainly at researchers, policy makers and practitioners. However they are not inaccessible to the general reader prepared to pause and dwell on their substance and consider the implications for the massive social undertakings of adaptation.

There’s no triumphalism in the book. Adaptation is going to be a shaky process, and there must be real doubt about our capacity to achieve it in some of the situations in which it is required. Indeed the prospect, if fully appreciated, is surely a further spur to trying to prevent the extremes of global warming which lie ahead if we continue to exploit fossil fuels. The editors certainly don’t present adaptation as a substitute for preventing climate change in the first place. It will be challenge enough trying to adapt to the changed conditions which will accompany the 2 degrees of warming our politicians say we are setting as an upper limit. Adaptation to the 4 degrees of warming which we are actually on course for beggars the imagination. One fears that in that event the thoughtful explorations of issues represented in this book may be thrown into disarray by pressing urgencies of survival. There’s every reason to keep insisting that our political leaders get real with mitigation.

Article by Bryan Walker, appearing courtesy Celsias.

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A new report by the United Nations Environment Program says that moving towards a green economy is the most effective way to reduce worldwide poverty

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released a report last week arguing the risks we face today are much different from what they were 50 years ago. The report, Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication, concludes that a shift to a green economy “has the potential to achieve sustainable development and poverty eradication on a scale and at a speed not seen before.”

Greener Economy Focus Means Job-Creation and Economic Growth

Public and private investments aimed at increasing and enhancing natural capital (i.e forests, water, soil and fish stocks) creates new economic sectors and new technologies. Investing in clean energy, energy efficiency, recycling, sustainable agriculture, and waste management technologies and infrastructure, as well as human capital related to these, will create jobs, income, and economic growth. By both traditional measures of economic growth and vitality as well as more holistic measures that take the value of natural capital into account more, the report finds that by 2020, taking a green economy route rather than a business-as-usual route will result in better economic results.

In agriculture, buildings, forestry and transportation, a green economy approach would create jobs in the short-term, the medium-term, and the long-term. In other sectors, a green approach is needed for medium- and/or long-term economic sustainability.

Public Sector Needed to Jump-Start Shift to a Green Economy

The private sector, of course, needs to invest in a greener economy in order for the world to achieve these benefits, but the public sector has a clear role to play as well.

It must help “in overcoming distortions introduced by perverse subsidies and externalized costs,” the report remarks. “And public investment will be required to jump-start an effective transition to a green economy.”

To read more about how, exactly, a green economy approach is better for the economy, or the governmental policies needed to lead us into this economy, read the full report.

Article by Zachary Shahan, appearing courtesy ecopolitology.

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India will not accept limits on its greenhouse gas emissions at climate talks later this year and instead will focus on economic growth and lifting its people out of poverty, according to Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. He said that a legally binding emissions target would endanger India’s food security and transport, adding, “India cannot and will not take emission reduction targets because poverty eradication and social and economic development are first and overriding priorities.”

India has low per capita greenhouse gas emissions, but its population of 1 billion and the country’s rapid economic development now make it the world’s fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases. In advance of international climate talks in Copenhagen in December, China has also said it would reject limits on its CO2 emissions, and India’s declaration further complicates prospects of securing an international agreement. Both nations have called on the developed world to commit to sharp emissions reductions, with China saying the U.S. should slash CO2 emissions by 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Chinese officials have criticized a climate bill recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives for falling far short of that goal.

This article originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 at http://e360.yale.edu

[photo credit: joiseyshowaa]

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