Recently I’ve seen a bunch of news stories like this quoting folks who feel cap & trade is too risky because the technology isn’t yet available to help America meet greenhouse gas emission caps.
Well, that’s not exactly the case. A study published in Science magazine by Princeton University researchers R. Socolow and S. Pacala found:
“Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world’s energy needs over the next 50 years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the pre-industrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere at full industrial scale.”
But the real beauty of cap & trade is that it will create the, er, environment in which new clean-energy innovations can be developed and brought to the marketplace.
In November McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, released a report entitled “Reducing US Greenhouse Gas Emissions: How Much at What Cost?” that found emission reductions can be achieved by 2030 with proven and emerging technologies, and that nearly 40 percent of 250 potential emissions reductions opportunities would more than pay for themselves and create net savings for the economy. Quoting the study:
“A concerted, nationwide effort to reduce GHG emissions would almost certainly stimulate economic forces and create business opportunities that we cannot foresee today and that may accelerate the rate of abatement the nation can achieve, thereby reducing the overall cost.”
Mike Fitts, associate editor at The State in my home state of South Carolina, wrote a terrific piece last Friday on this subject that’s worth a read.
That’s the good news about energy technology. Here’s the real bad news we should be concerned about – Iran is making some bad choices, folks. Fortunately, the new energy innovations that cap & trade will stimulate here will eventually reduce the flow of oil dollars that are funding some very bad actors.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 at 1:41 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, Cap and Trade, Eco-Business Strategies . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
