Transcript
JOHN ROWE: The National Commission, however, recognized that solving climate change cannot simply be done with new regulations. We need them, but we also need new machines. The scissors has to have two blades to work. And the government not only has an essential role in adopting the pricing regime, it also has an essential role in fostering the kinds of machines that can deal with climate; an essential role, but I think a limited one.
First and perhaps most importantly, the government simply must adopt more stringent energy efficiency standards for buildings, for equipment, for appliances, for new buildings, and for rehabs for buildings everywhere it can. We simply shouldn't go out and buy what people ought to be doing for themselves in the first place.
Second, the government must invest in research and development with respect to renewables and carbon sequestration. Third, we need tax incentives for limited quantities of renewables, and we need the government to fund the loan guarantee program for the first nuclear plants. And finally, the federal government must make good on its 30 year commitment, I think it's more like a 70 year commitment, to find a repository for used nuclear fuel. These actions by government, this version of Clay's American system is essential if we're going to deal with carbon. Now, the second essential is that the market must follow up on these new structures. And I'm confident that it will if the structures are proper. Climate change is as much about economic transformation as it is about regulation. Tom Friedman pointed out in a recent New York Times piece, "we simply must enlist the dynamism and creativity of the free market system." That is because there is no silver bullet, there is no quick or easy technological solution to climate change, not my favorite nuclear plant, not energy efficiency, not wind or renewables, there simply isn't one easy solution.
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