Photo: Original uploader was Coolcaesar at en.wikipedia
There is a race. The leader in venture capital investment is still the United States. The country has invested in next-generation bio-fuels, advanced solar, energy efficiency and smart grid technologies. Yet members of Congress are disturbed regarding the clean technology race. They would like the U.S. to win. But doubt regarding a viable global clean energy economy remains.
The Situation in the United States
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has repeatedly refused to take meaningful steps to control the pollution that causes global warming, arguing that it does not have the authority to do so. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected that argument, confirming that the EPA does have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act if they "endanger public health and welfare.
It takes more than just knowing what we shouldn't be doing to further degrade the environment in order to protect it. Protection also demands we know how the environment might return the favor. Dr. Chris West, who directs the government's UK Climate Impacts Program, and his organization educate individuals and businesses in Britain on risks from climate change and possible solutions. Someone should start to ponder all the possible ways climate change will affect everyone. There's a lot to think about-economics, medical, ecology, housing, food, land, water, air, we can go on.
Photo: Omegatron
The Situation in the Netherlands
High priority to the Dutch is climate change, global warming to be exact. They could actually be deprived of their coastal cities entirely, the threat being the North Sea flooding those cities. A senior government adviser and professor at Wageningen University and Research Center, Pier Vellinga, has estimated that 0.2% of its GDP annually or $1.3 billion would be necessary to elevate the North Sea standard to a 1-in-100,000-years level of protection. This is a process Parliament wants and Dutch law demanded through the years. The reasoning behind this move is economic, but safety for its people, foreign visitors and the environment is crucial to the Netherlands as well.
The Situation in Bangladesh
Penny Davies, a diplomat at the British High Commission in Dhaka, seems to think that Bangladesh, an island state, reveals the future of climate change, not in a positive way, but in a really bad way. Ravaged with poverty, it is difficult for Bangladesh to mount a defense against climate change. But things are happening. The climate-change director, Saleemul Huq, for the International Institute for Environment and Development believes that rich countries created greenhouse emissions. These countries are stepping up to finance roads, wells and houses. Within all future planning and decision-making, climate-change models will be incorporated, according to Saleemul Huq and his associates at the Ministry of Water.
The Situation in India
India does not survey itself as a competitor in a global green contention, though it seems to want to resolve its domestic energy problems. India has promised to lessen its carbon debts by 24%. A senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, David Wheeler, stated that India is on path to exact that it purchase a modicum of 5% of its grid investment from renewable sources this year, enlarging to 15% by the year 2020.
Photo: Ian Kiu
The Situation in China
According to Michael Levi, "if there are countries that think they are in a clean-energy race, it's China." He is an energy expert and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Leading, for the first time, China is ahead of the United States in green energy markets. That means China also leads all other principal countries. China's investments in 2009 are double the U.S.'s. Technological newness still comes from the U.S. but currency rigging and subsidies help increase manufacturing.
The Situation in the United Kingdom
Britain wants to show how communities can stroll toward and into the climate millennium. Conjoining mitigation and adaptation, Britain has planned a different urban village approximately 120 miles north of London. One that will employ low-carbon-energy and be built to withstand future climate changes, i.e. flood protection design.
Photo: US Department of Energy
Is It Really A Race?
Yes. According to IPCC, 2007: "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. A Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", most of the global warming occurring in recent decades is very likely - or 90%-99% - the result of human activities. An increase in greenhouse gas concentrations within the next century is likely, unless reduced significantly from where it already is.
Aerosols come from two different places, traffic exhaust and are generated by transformations that occur once pollutants spend time in the atmosphere (secondary sources). Technologically innovative production measures, transportation, heating, cooling, and much more are needed to reverse the climb and move greenhouse gas concentration numbers back to little or none. Natural disasters seem to be one of the problems pushing countries to innovate somewhat to defend against expensive or permanent destruction of land.
Climate change, its quantity and rate, depend on concentration increases of aerosols and gases, temperature, precipitation and sea level, volcanic activity, the sun's intensity, changes in the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, etc. There may be environmentally safer places to live in the world currently.
There are countries doing a little more than others to protect an area of their land, water or air being hit environmentally hard today. But will the efforts continue, encompassing all land, air and water? Behavior is key to answering that question.
Source: Friedman, Lisa, Finance: China leads major countries with $34.6 billion invested in clean technology", Climate Wire, E&E Publishing, Inc, March 2010.
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