Senators, Governors, business leaders and international experts met in Washington D.C to discuss the prospects for U.S. domestic action on climate change.
Many of the participants stressed that action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should not be delayed by the global economic downturn because it provides an opportunity to lay the foundations for a sustainable recovery based on low-carbon growth.
The symposium was titled ‘U.S. Climate Action: A Global Economic Perspective’. During the opening session, Tony Blair, the former UK Prime Minister, argued that the leading economic powers around the world now understand the significant risks of climate change and appreciate that the best way to minimize the dangers is by investing in a low-carbon economy.
Senator Bingaman said “Today’s bipartisan gathering of leaders to discuss how to move climate policy forward in the current economic crisis is constructive. A responsibly-designed national climate policy will create economic opportunities and jobs and spur investment in low-carbon technologies that will make U.S. businesses more competitive. The costs of climate policy can be mitigated with the right policy measures, and we need to move ahead with both energy policies and a national cap and trade program to sustain these investments.”
Senator Stabenow said “For me, the bottom-line of any future climate change bill must be jobs. Climate policy can help re-build the middle class and create jobs in states like Michigan where we have the manufacturing base and engineering know-how to produce the new technology that will be needed. I intend to keep jobs and common sense at the top of the list of considerations as the climate policy discussion continues.”
“In Michigan our top priority is growing the economy and creating jobs and that is why comprehensive climate change legislation is important to our state,” said Governor Jennifer M. Granholm. “Not only will this legislation advance clean energy technologies that reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, it will create millions of new green jobs, and protect our natural resources and that is critical for a state like Michigan that has lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.”
There was strong agreement about the importance of boosting economic growth and combating climate change at the same time, and participants recognized that low-carbon investments will not only be good for jobs and economic recovery but will also improve the country’s energy security and begin to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the highly influential report ‘The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review’ in 2006, said: “The US has a real opportunity to take a lead given the creativity of its entrepreneurs and its technical talents.”
Lord Stern added: “Low carbon growth is the only growth story, because high carbon growth would eventually choke itself off. The world would react strongly to an America lead as we go forward to build an international deal at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen at the end of this year.”
Nobel Prize winning U.S. economist Professor Joe Stiglitz agreed, stating that “Countries around the world have been waiting for the US to take leadership but they have not been sitting idle. Many countries have set out domestic plans of action on reducing their emissions. It is now the turn of the U.S. to use its power of example to motivate key countries to work together and find a global solution to this global problem.”
Tony Blair, former UK Prime Minister, said “The current economic woes provide us not with an excuse for inaction but a reason for acting. Let us stimulate economic growth by investing in alternative energy and energy efficiency; and let us invest now in these times of lower carbon price to prepare for the times when that price rises again. Let us put economic growth and combating