Towards a Low Carbon Economy.

A New Path to a Low Carbon Economy

Is there really a scalable, low carbon alternative?

The result was a dramatic decline in CO2 emissions.

Indeed, nobody emits CO2 for fun.

In an age of climate change, several countries are demonstrating how to move to a low carbon economy.

The world faces a long voyage before it reaches a low carbon energy system.

Thus, less CO2 gets released into the atmosphere.

But astonishingly, it is coal, the dirtiest fuel, that is experiencing the sharpest increase in use.

China is already a top carbon dioxide emitter.

For years , this has stymied progress in the United States towards a low carbon economy.

The problem is that even global, draconian, and hugely costly CO2 reductions will have virtually no impact on the temperature by mid century.

Here are seven policy steps that EU heads of state can take to embrace the low carbon economic future

Mexico is not alone in adopting a national strategy for the transition to a low carbon, resource efficient green economy.

The scientific evidence suggests that carbon emissions from anywhere in the world have about the same impact on global warming.

The same report warns that, if we do not change our ways, worldwide CO2 emissions will rise exponentially.

Rising CO2 prices in turn accelerate innovation, spawning breakthroughs.

Germany doesn t have a low carbon alternative if it shutters its nuclear plants, and the same is true of most other countries.

One option is a shift to non carbon energy sources, such as renewable energy (solar and wind power) and nuclear energy. Another option is to combine carbon based energy (coal, oil, and gas) with new technologies that prevent the emission of airborne carbon.

Strong carbon cuts could avert about 0.2 of the malaria incidence in a hundred years.

Indeed, the world is witnessing an extraordinary mobilization of national level projects and policies that are shifting economies onto a low carbon path.

It's created a million jobs inside that country, and it's saved 32 million tons of CO2. It's really substantial.

In other words, the world can combine economic growth with declining emissions of carbon dioxide.

This requires modifying some of the rules governing its own internal carbon market, the EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS).

Three objectives should be targeted low cost alternatives to fossil fuels, greater energy efficiency, and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

Let s roll up our sleeves together and plot a viable pathway to a safe and effective low carbon economy.

Powerful interests will, of course, oppose any low carbon transition, dismissing and often drowning out those who stand to benefit.

Two neighbors in Europe, Germany and France, are showing the way forward or, more precisely, the alternative ways forward to a low carbon future.

They can and should go hand in hand what we need is climate resilient, low carbon growth.

In the short term, the world should become a sustainable global society of low CO2 emitters.

One downside to China s rapid growth is its rising demand for energy and the increased CO2 emissions that accompany it.

In a cap and trade system, the government sets total allowable national emissions of CO2 per year and requires any firm that causes CO2 emissions to have a permit per ton of CO2 emitted.

Go to ClimateCrisis.org or CarbonCalculator.com and buy carbon credits. You could join other leaders in mandating, lobbying for mandated cap and trade in U.S. greenhouse gas reductions.

We have often been promised dramatic cuts in CO2 emissions far into the future, only to see the promises vanish when we got there.

This offers tremendous economic opportunities, if we can just put a price on the dangers to the planet of current carbon emissions.

The world s eight richest countries promised to seriously consider halving their CO2 emissions by 2050.

Our one sided focus on rapid reductions in CO2 emissions is both unnecessarily expensive and unlikely to succeed.

Using more energy inevitably means emitting more CO2 at a time when climate change has become a critical global issue.

Governments have therefore focused on a cap and trade system as a way of increasing the cost of CO2 intensive products without explicitly imposing a tax.

A significant way to meet these stringent standards is in the construction of buildings that minimize environmental impacts, as well as the refurbishing of older buildings to meet carbon emission standards.

The fact is that the world would have to make a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient future even if there were no climate change.

Fundamentally, this is changing the way we invest and changing the direction of the economy, so that we can grow sustainably on the low carbon path.

3. A deal that supports, through a mixture of both public and private financing, the infrastructure required to shift to a low carbon economy.

Unfortunately, clean, renewable energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide, such as wind power and geothermal power, are not yet sufficient.

While such targets are important, what matters most is agreement on the measures that ultimately will set the world on a new path to a low carbon future.