The single most important thing someone can do to reduce carbon emissions, beyond having a vote in Congress or a seat at the table in the upcoming Copenhagen talks, is to help prove the economics of fighting climate change, the 42nd U.S. President Bill Clinton told an audience at the Fortune Magazine Green conference Wednesday afternoon. Clinton delivered his remarks to a group consisting largely of greentech entrepreneurs betting on businesses that are attempting to do just that — whether they be biofuel makers, smart grid firms, or IT companies — so Clinton was clearly preaching to the choir.
Clinton, whose history of working with clean power policies stems all the way back to when he was the governor of Arkansas, said that now that he’s out of office he’s more interested in focusing on “the how” of fighting climate change, instead of “the what” (policy-driven targets and specifications). Answering “the how question” is of prime importance, he said, and showing the world that reducing carbon emissions is good businesses does just that. If we can show the economic benefits of carbon reductions, he said, then we will tear down all the arguments of the climate skeptics as it makes clear that implementing these technologies and efficiencies is a good idea across the board.
Amid the emphasis on economics, Clinton also listed a litany of desires and demands for federal, state and local governments, including:
- Longer-term federal tax credits for renewable energy.
- A funding mechanism to monitor and have oversight on all the climate change projects across the globe.
- A buildout of our electrical grid, and an increase in clean power capacity.
- If states don’t have decoupling laws for utilities, the federal government should mandate it.
- The feds can do a lot more to create a market for hybrid and electric cars. Why not just retire the federal fleet now for greener vehicles?
Comments have been disabled for this post