Author: Dafydd Elis

Steven Chu in Copenhagen (Image by: Andy Revkin)

The US’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a new stream of funding for low-energy technologies here in Copenhagen yesterday.

The money is being offered as the result of discussions at the Major Economies Forum (MEF) at L’Aquila, Italy, earlier this year.

The money is for five years, and will be distributed over four different programmes. One will focus on solar-powered lighting using LEDs; another will provide practical and economic support to low-income countries to deploy renewable energy technologies. The other two programmes focus on improving energy efficiency in developed countries’ products and on providing information about clean technology potential globally.

Of these, the bulk of the funding will go to the renewable energy funding – $250m of the $350m announced. In fact, much of this money is not new. $200m of it had already been pledged by the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.

While this funding might go a little way to filling a near-term gap in financing for technology transfer and development, the short five-year duration of the programme announced and the relatively small sums involved ($70m a year between more than seven major economies) is small fry even compared to the $10billion per year committed by the EU to adaptation funding last week.

More fundamentally, a long-term and economically sizable mechanism for supporting technology transfer will need to be developed as part of a post-Kyoto agreement. This has been under discussion over the last two years as part of the Bali agreement, and featured in the draft negotiation text issued last week.

Exactly how this will look once this week’s negotiations are done remains to be seen.

© Laura Padgett

Following two days of high-level discussions held in Washington at the beginning of last week, the U.S. and China signed an agreement to increase cooperation on climate change and energy.

These discussions were the first meeting in the China-U.S. Economic and Strategic Dialogue which was launched by Hu Jintao and Barak Obama at the G20 meeting in London in April, and are set to continue later this year. They consisted of two parallel tracks – an economic track, co-chaired by US Treasury Secretary Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan; and a policy one, co-chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo

In the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which was signed at the end of the meeting the two nations agree to “strengthen and coordinate our respective efforts to combat global climate change, promote clean and efficient energy, protect the environment and natural resources, and support environmentally sustainable and low-carbon economic growth”. The countries agree that cooperation between them is crucial to reaching these goals, and that they both have an important role in global negotiations. The document also states that this future cooperation will also strengthen and improve the relationship between China and the US, something that will benefit both countries in areas other than climate change as well.

As far as practicalities, the MoU doesn’t contain a whole lot of those. There are no exact targets and no detailed plans for cooperation other than stating that the two countries will “establish Climate Change Policy Dialogue and Cooperation as a platform for the United States and China to address global climate change and to identify and resolve areas of concern.”

So this agreement is no more than a general outline for future cooperation, which while it is definitely a step in the right direction, as US Senator John Kerry pointed out “the fully defined mutuality of effort between our two countries—did not materialize.”

This does not mean though that the improved relationship between the US and China since Obama took office has not yielded more concrete developments. These came two weeks previously when – during secretaries Steven Chu (energy) and Gary Locke (commerce) visit to China – the two countries agreed on several joint projects including an agreement between the U.S. DoE and the Chinese Ministry of Urban-Rural Development to foster collaboration in the development of more efficient building designs and sustainable communities; and an announcement of a joint Clean Energy Center to which the two countries pledged $15 million in support of initial activities.

These increasingly closer ties with China also provide opportunities to expose the US public and members of Congress to the progress made within China in fields such energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean energy technologies. This is important as the perceived lack of progress in other major emitters, especially China, is often used as an excuse to oppose and water down the US climate bill.

Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee

Hot on the heels of the House vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the Senate is now taking its turn to deliberate a climate change bill, with a full Environment & Public Works Committee hearing today, only the second legislative day since the House took its vote.

While parts of a Senate bill have been discussed previously, today was the first big hearing in the issue, and an opening shot for discussions that should last throughout the summer. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared Sep 18 as the deadline for the 6 relevant committees to produce their pieces of the bill so that the bill can be voted on this autumn, and California Senator Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee is expected to release her draft of the bill in the next few weeks.

The first panel consisted of representatives of the administration – Secretaries Steven Chu (Energy), Tom Vilsack (Agriculture) and Ken Salazar (Interior) and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. The questions they received from committee members ranged in subject and style – discussions of the merits and demerits of nuclear energy (which Chu agreed will have an important part in a low carbon future); inquiries into the the potential of solar energy (Sen. Sanders, I-VT, is a know solar enthusiast); nitpicky remarks about alleged suppressions of documents within the EPA; and a request for clarifications as to the benefits of public transport (Sen. Cardin, D-DM, wanted to know about energy saving and environmental benefits, stating that its contribution to quality of life is obvious).

Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ), with his questions, provided the opportunity for Chu to explain how science actually works and why climate change science can’t be a hoax, and got on record the connection between more cars, which leads to increased pollution, and an increase in asthma sufferers. Something his grandson shares in common with Jackson’s child.

One of the things that struck me during these discussions, is that the Republican members of the committee can’t seem to understand the fact that the solution to climate change will take a global effort. Again and again they solicited quotes from the panel members that this bill is not going to solve the climate crisis (a crisis most of them still deny), concluding that the bill is not worth it. Again and again the panellists responded that not only is it not just a climate bill (but also an energy bill, a jobs bill and a chance for the US to again be a leader in innovation), but also that for an effective global action, the US must lead and the other countries will follow.

After this there was a break in the hearing, while members went to the swearing in of Democrat Al Franken, whose final winning of the Minnesota seat gave the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority of 60 senate seats (though they are still far from 60 supporters for a climate bill).

The second panel consisted of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour who – amongst other things – criticized the length of the House bill; Rich Wells, VP of the Dow Chemical Company who represented a business that has already realised the importance, and reaped the benefits, of energy efficiency; David Hawkins of the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) who mentioned serious concerns about the way biomas and offsets are dealt with in the House bill; and finally John Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, a small town in Pennsylvania which transformed from a “thriving steel town of over 20,000” to “a shattered community of under 3,000 residents today”. He spoke on behalf of the people that for decades have watched their jobs being exported overseas and reminded the committee that many workers unions – United Steelworkers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association, to name but a few – have supported the House climate bill. He told of how clean energy initiatives benefited his community – for example increasing summer youth employment – and how he, and his town, see the bill as an opportunity, not a financial burden.