Climate Change Archive

Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century

By
Simon Rosenberg
Published: October 8, 2009

Demos, a London-based think tank, asked me to contribute a short essay on what it means to be on the center-left today.  It is one of a series of essays running as a part of a new Demos project called Open Left.  You can find the essay, Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century, and other interesting essays here.

I’m on the left because only the progressive moments in our history, and the progressive leaders who forge them, ensure that prosperity is shared more broadly and our country more prepared to face the future. The last century has seen an ebb and flow between right and left. In America we’ve had three broad periods. The first ran between the two Roosevelts: a battle to lock-down a new reform-minded politics born in the aftermath of economic upheaval in the “progressive era.” It was eventually captured by the Democrats. The second went from FDR to Reagan: an era of Democratic consolidation, which built America’s (still unfinished) social contract. The third began in 1980: a conservative ascendancy that saw its greatest triumphs in 1994 and 2004.

It’s worth remembering that until 2007 the conservative movement had achieved more political and ideological control over my country than at any time since the 1920s. Under President Obama that moment is passing, we hope for good – although battles, such as those being fought over the economy, healthcare, climate changes and immigration as I write, must be won to truly turn back the two-decade march. But the most important question from America’s recent past was – would conservatism mature to provide a credible alternative governing philosophy to replace 20th century progressivism? The Bush era answered that question. The answer is no. It is a lesson that the United Kingdom should learn carefully, as it toys with returning a once-discredited party of the right to political office.

But this next progressive era will not be dominated by the two-tired conservative and liberal ideologies of the past. So it falls to the progressive side to build a reinvented governing agenda capable of tackling the challenges of our time, and new political arrangements built around the capabilities of our fast-changing economy, media and people. Three challenges standout; three that are quite different from those we faced even a few decades ago when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair rethought what it meant to be on the centre-left.

Just as FDR tamed America’s industrial society, so now we must make the transition to a low carbon society-a societal transformation which if anything has been understated by our leaders. Everything from how we build and drive to how we power our mobile devices must change. This transformation will requires a great deal of money, innovations yet unimagined, and a public ready and willing not just to follow but to lead. It also needs a strong moral vision, and a role for the state unsuited to conservativism. And while the proposals offered by Ed Miliband and the Brown government this month are a good start, managing this transformation over the next three decades will make or break political careers and parties. Getting this right is a prerequisite for center-left success in the 21st century.

Second, we must re-imagine politics and government for an age when we are all connected. At some point in the next ten years just about everyone in the world will become knitted together through mobile devices and online. All that we know – communications, commerce, learning, socialising, politics, governing, even the concept of free and open societies themselves-will be changed by this powerful and ever more ubiquitous network. Harnessing the promise of this new age of mobile, and the radical democratization of information, knowledge and power it offers will be one of our the great projects of the center-left in the years to come.

Finally, we must come to terms with “the rise of the rest” as Fareed Zakaria has defined the emergent geopolitical reality of our day, this inexorable trend of developing nations like China, India, Mexico and Brazil taking their seat at the global table. In the years ahead these countries will surely produce Chinese Microsofts and Indian Nokias. Their economic maturation will mean that our countries will compete with both their inexpensive workers and a whole new set of globally competitive corporations, further intensifying already virulent global competition for our businesses, workers and students. Producing rising standards of living in the West will require much more investment in infrastructure, knowledge, skills and schools, and our people’s full partnership in understanding that success will require us to do more, to raise our game, or risk being left behind.

This “rise of the rest” will also require a remaking of the global institutions of governance and power. We have seen this process play out this year as the G20 begins to replace the G8, and the debate over how to remake the International Money Fund has begun in earnest. With only about 15 percent of the world’s people today of European descent, the ability for the governments of the West to be the primary managers of global affairs is coming to an end, a process that will not be easy for our governments to manage, or perhaps our people to accept.

The challenges in front of the center-left political parties of the West today are extraordinary, the greatest we have faced since the rise of European fascism seventy years ago. Today, as in the past, only a progressive vision is fit to meet them. Facing them forthrightly, and showing the courage to tackle them head-on will be perhaps the greatest test of them all.

Removing Roadblocks to the Growth of Renewables

By
Michael Moynihan
Published: August 17, 2009

On Friday, the US Energy Information released new monthly statistics for renewable energy output as well as output of traditional forms of power.  The good news is that renewable energy in May, the latest month for which statistics have been compiled, is at its all time highest level, accounting for 13% of total power.  The bad news, however, is that the vast majority of this, about 9.4% comes from traditional hydropower.  The other renewables, wind, solar, biomass and geothermal accounted for just 3.6%.   Wind accounts for 1.8, biomass, 1.3%, geothermal 0.4% and solar 0.3% of the total.

All of the sources of renewables grew, but the growth rates were modest.  Wind grew year-on-year by 12.5% and solar by only 3.5%.  These growth rates might be passable for mature technologies with a huge starting base.  However, for comparatively new technologies with a tiny denominator, these growth rates are not impressive.  True, the data do not reflect the full force of the Investment Tax Credit (for solar installations) extended last fall and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed this winter–because of the lag in the data.  Still they tell at best a story of an industry surviving the recession.  They do not tell a story of economic rebirth based on the promise of a low carbon future.

There are reasons to hope clean energy would be growing much faster than these rates–the goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions–essential to addressing climate change–and the goal of creating a new wave of clean technology-driven growth.  (The goal of energy security is less dependent on renewable technologies since coal is present in the United States but is nonetheless also served by replacing oil in our nation’s energy mix.)

However, there are also reasons to expect clean energy to be growing far faster than it is: the declining cost curves of renewables relative to fossil fuels, the large subisidies the government has put in place and the huge push America is making, from the President’s speeches to the T.Boone Pickens Plan for energy independence on down.  In many states, renewable energy is even mandated through a Renewable Electricity Standard.  Looking abroad, Germany produces 7% of its power from wind, about four times what the US does and Spain’s solar power capacity grew 364% in 2008.  Now that is the type of growth needed to have a real effect!  The fact is US growth rates in renewable industry are not meeting reasonable expectations for clean energy growth, let alone desirable targets.

I have been studying the question of why clean technology is moving so slowly into the marketplace in the United States and my research suggests that adoption of clean technology and renewable energy must be about more than pricing and incentives.  It is about decisionmaking and removing obstacles to the deployment of clean energy.  These obstacles are present, once you peer into the complex world of the electricity industry,in a host of non economic barriers to implementation.

To understand why clean energy is not–even with large incentives in place–displacing dirtier forms of energy, it is important to recall the extraordinarily complex nature of the industry.  Like all large industries, the electricity industry has incumbents.  These incumbents–unlike say car manufacturers or computer companies, are protected by regulation.  During the 1990s, the industry was partially deregulated so that market forces were introduced in some parts of the industry in some regions.  However, the work of regulatory reform proceeded only part way leaving the industry in a sort of limbo  Today, some regions of the country have wholesale competition.  Others have limited retail competition.  Still others have wholly vertically integrated companies supplying their customers with soup to nuts service unchanged from a half century ago.  And there is limited trade in electricity, this in an era, when frozen dinners served in the United States are made in Thailand and fresh flowers cut in Bolivia.

Indeed the electricity industry is quite rare today in remaining geographically divided.  With some exceptions it is illegal for a utility in one region to sell to customers in another.  There is effectively no such thing as national competition. There are, of course, many precedents for these legalized restraints on trade.  Banking used to be organized this way prior to reforms in the 1980s and 1990s.  Telecommunications after the breakup of Ma Bell but before the 1996 Telecom bill and development of national communications services was similarly organized by region.  In the case of electricity, besides the legal restraints on trade there are major physical restraints in the form of lack of capacity on the grid to move power where it is needed.

The absence of universal market allocation of power, means that decisionmaking–of what types of power to buy, what types of clean technology to implement and what types of infrastructure to build–is left, frequently to a small group of decisionmakers who are also incumbents and have a rational bias towards decisions supporting their incumbent position.  A transformative technology, for example, could reduce the value of their legacy assets.  Building a new transmission line to connect wind power to the grid, may make a plant they own obsolete.  It may therefore be entirely rational for them to discourage rather than encourage the deployment of new technology.

It would be one thing if the decisionmakers were acting on their own.  However, typically they make decisions under the rate base system that provides a guaranteed rate of return on anything they can place in the rate base.  This would ordinarily incent them toward overinvestment.  However, since regulators oversee these rate cases and generally try to lower costs, the decisionmakers at utilities have a conflicting mandate to gain a high rate of return but also keep costs down.  This can lead to a bias toward investments that pay off immediately and against investments that pay off longer term.

The upshot is that getting the type of growth rates of renewables needed to unlock the economic and social potential of clean energy is likely to take more than economic incentives and mandates.  It may well require reform to remove obstacles to the deployment of new technology.

The energy bills now working their way through Congress contain some measures to address these problems.  But my research suggests more work needs to be done.

Trade and Carbon

By
Michael Moynihan
Published: July 22, 2009

This past weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveling in India received the message, courteous but firm, that India has no intention of capping carbon.  The rationale provided is that India has low per capita emissions.  This is, to be sure, India’s best argument.  Her overall emissions are soaring as her population spirals upward–India only two thirds as populous as China a decade ago, will pass China to become the world’s most populous country of almost 1.5 billion people in 2030.  India’s per capita emissions are rising too from industrialization.  But they remain below those in developed countries.  China, the other key holdout on capping emissions can make a similar per capita argument though it recently passed the US to become the world’s largest emitter and its emissions are soaring as it develops.

While the posture of India and China are problematic on their own, they make it harder for other countries to take action.  After all, if the world’s two most populous and dynamic economies growing at about 7% (down admittedly from China’s 13% growth in 2007), won’t opt in, why should the US which contracted last quarter at a 5.5% rate.  With America’s standard of living under siege putting America at a further competitive disadvantage–no matter how much carbon we emit per capita–is a tough sell to voters.  And what emerges is a classic collective action stalemate.

This dilemna highlights one of the diferences between greenhouse gases and other environmental issues. Unlike cleaning the air or water where the benefits are realized locally, keeping costs and benefits within one country, reducing emissions benefits the entire planet but costs whomever does it growth.  This is what makes a global solution–such as that promoted by the UN through the Kyoto and now Copenhagen process so attractive.  However, if China and India won’t come to the table, what should the US do?

One solution attracting interest of late is the use of trade policy to punish carbon havens. Indeed, at the last minute, the House inserted into the Waxman Markey bill a provision to impose tariffs on countries that do not take action to limit emissions.  In announcing his support for the House bill after its passage, President Obama flagged the provision as troubling insofar as it runs counter to free trade principles.

So is trade policy a valid tool in climate policy?  The New York Times recently argued it is if enacted multilaterally but not if unilaterally.  Paul Krugman, my professor of trade policy at Princeton, has endorsed the idea in theory.  My view is that trade policy is a problematic tool from a practical standpoint that would require significant new infrastructure to work at all.

The problem with using trade policy for an environmental purposes are fourfold.

First, trade actions have an unfortunate tendency to invite retaliation and provoke trade wars even in a multilateral context.  No matter how good your case, other countries can respond in kind.  The result is then a lengthy negotiation or WTO process that ultimately harms both parties.

Second while the temptation to use trade policy to protect clean domestic industries against dirty foreign ones may be great, the track record for mixing the environment with trade is poor.  More often than not, environmental regulations have functioned as non tariff trade barriers.  Domestic companies claim them when threatened economically and verifying them becomes a political football.

Third, as with food safety regulations, labor regulations and other hard to measure quantities, measurement is labor intensive and becomes an impediment to good regulation.  This would complicate administering any tariff.  It might overwhelm the WTO.

Fourth, increasing the price of an import to protect a domestic industry can have the adverse consequence of increasing the price of inputs for other domestic products.  A classic example is that when the US slapped a tariff on LCDs to protect LCD domestic manufacturers in the 1980s, it drove American laptop manufacturing offshore.  Taxing imports from carbon havens to protect domestic industries could raise manufacturing costs for other companies causing the latter to shift their production to carbon havens.

Those are the arguments against. On the other hand, giving imports a total pass not only harms domestic producers but is tantamount to a cordial invitation to domestic companies to shift production–and jobs–offshore.  This issue came up, of course, in the NAFTA debate.  Ideally, there ought to be some middle ground.

To view how a tariff might succeed or not, consider the case of electricity intensive aluminum production.  Rio Tinto as one example, produces aluminum using a hydro power in Canada but coal-based power in Australia.  Were the US to slap a tariff on aluminum produced with coal-based power (hard enough to determine in and of itself), aluminum produced with hydro power would be cheaper. One outcome would be for Rio Tinto to phase out coal in favor of hydro in the production of aluminum.  Were that to occur, one might call a US tariff an environmental and economic success.

Another possible outcome, however, would be for Rio Tinto to fulfill US demand with an unchanged mix of product that would cost buyers more due to the tariff.  In that case, US companies might decide to shift the production of products using aluminum overseas.  This would be an environmental and economic failure.  The deciding factors between the two outcomes would probably be Rio Tinto’s ease of substituting zero carbon energy source for coal and the domesic companies’ difficulty of moving production of products using aluminum oversas.

In short, it is hard to predict in advance just how the tariff would impact the market, but it is clear, the more carbon havens exist, the greater the likelihood that production will seek them out.

Currently a workable regime is not readily at hand.  Were a trade regime to ultimately be invoked, here are some thoughts to guide its development.

First, as with the capping of carbon emissions themselves, putting a price on emissions in imports should be pushed as far up the value chain as possible. This is because as products grow more complex, tracking their carbon footprint becomes more difficult and trade restrictions multiply.  Any trade-based taxes on carbon intensive goods should be directed upstream at basic goods such as steel or aluminum, not at finished products made from those commodities.  While this could drive downstream industries overseas, on balance, I think, it would be far less distortionary to address a few commodities than many products.

Second, some sort of standardized process for measuring carbon footprints needs to be devised.  However, it would be preferable for some private body to administer standards rather than a governmental organization.  A number of creative startups are trying to devise novel ways of tracking carbon.  One such ventures is Greenerone.com which uses crowd sourced information–or information gleaned for free by numerous reporters to track the environmental profile of products.  Others are working on more industry-focused products.  Whatever system is used should involve as little bureaucracy as possible consistent with being stable and standardized.

Another idea, admittedly bold, would be to devise some sort of average duty–product independent–to penalize countries that choose not to limit their emissions during production.  Such an approach would have to be administered multilaterally, lest it lead to an immediate trade war, thus it is not something the US could do in and of itself.

The very complexity of using a trade hammer shows that it is far preferable to develop a coordinated multilateral regime than to use trade policy.  Free trade has created wealth since the days of the Minoans and since then for the Athenians, Carthaginians, Romans, Indians, Venetians, Portuguese, Spanish, British and yes, Americans to name only a few.  It is, in contrast, a clumsy tool for achieving environmental goals.  Nonetheless, if India and China–and for that matter the US,  refuse to address the problem of a changing climate, the pressure to use trade policy to achieve those goals will only increase.

Clean Technology and Competitiveness 2.0

By
Michael Moynihan
Published: July 14, 2009

Clean technology clearly holds great promise for future economic growth.  However, as development of new clean technologies accelerate in the United States, it remains an open question whether US firms and workers will capture the economic activity or whether the bulk of the benefits will flow elsewhere.  The issue cropped up in the recent passage of the cash for clunkers law which will reward consumers for trading in clunkers for newer fuel efficient cars.  The law will benefit American consumers and carmakers but also benefit carmakers and overseas suppliers selling into the US market.  And, indeed, it shadows the entire issue of clean technology driven growth. While the transformation to a clean economy will pay important environmental and security dividends no matter what, how the economic promise of clean technology ultimately gets divided will vary by country.

Call it Competitiveness 2.0.  It is the subject of a penetrating article in the current Harvard Business Review by two Harvard professors, Gary Pisano and Willy Shih entitled “Restoring American Competitiveness: Why America Can’t Make a Kindle“. The professors examine a wide range of technologies from computer equipment to software to clean technology and find America at a growing competitive disadvantage. Both the data they cite and the case studies they include should serve as a wakeup call to anyone thinking about clean technology and the future of the US economy.

While innovative ideas continue to flourish in the United States — think Twitter, Ning and Facebook–the US has become a technology laggard among the OECD countries in critical measures. The US trade deficit is old news but the authors point out since 2002, the US has been running a deficit even in high tech goods and services. The main export of the US is capital.  And there are precious few bright spots in the technology firmament.

In the case of the Amazon’s Kindle reader, which the authors examine in detail, though engineers in California designed the product, there is simply no US capacity to make the components.  (If the US lacks the capacity to make a Kindle could it make a military computer in a pinch?)  In aircraft, Boeing continues to lead the world but it now relies on a network of global suppliers and has cut its American workforce.  Managing this complex supply chain led the company to delay delivery of its Dreamliner.  All but the highest end computers are now made abroad. And even complex software tasks, from writing software to using it for engineering, are moving overseas.

In clean technology, leadership in battery technology lies abroad. GM’s Volt, scheduled for introduction next year, for example, will source batteries from South Korea. While a few companies such as Tesla are developing advanced auto technologies, the US lags Asian and European companies in hybrid and other technology.  With most growth in the world’s auto sales likely to take place in China, India and the developing world, companies like Tata and Chery (originally a Chinese knockoff of Chevy) will have a homefield advantage. Chinese, Japanese and Korean companies dominate all PV production of solar cells except in thin films — the most advanced and promising technology where US firms still lead the way. In smart grid technologies, US companies face roadblocks in the form of an excessively complex and highly regulated utility industry.  Installing new smart grid meters and retrofitting old buildings only gets you so far in terms of new jobs and new businesses.  All told, while the US has the potential, thanks to our still- unmatched system for financing innnovation, to develop the technologies of tomorrow we are, all too often, behind in the technologies of today.

What are the sources of our competitiveness problem? America continues to lag in primary and secondary education. Our universities may be the best in the world, but most of the spots in top PhD programs now go to more motivated students from overseas.  (Community colleges are a US strength that can be scaled as Rob Shapiro has argued and the President recognized today in calling for their expansion.)  The relentless search for low wages continues to send capital out of the US. American firms still can receive tax breaks for moving jobs overseas. Short term thinking, driven by the next quarterly results dominates corporate strategy.

On the macroeconomic level, the US continues to stress consumption over production. This bias, which derives from a strong dollar that keeps imports cheap as long as others lend us the money to buy them, encourages overseas instead of domestic production. A weaker dollar and shift toward a producer and investment-led economy would temporarily lower standards of living, but may be what is required to create the foundation for long term growth. Recently, former NEC head, Laura Tyson, proposed just such a shift in national priorities. While these are complex questions, a real debate over our priorities — toward consumption–or production is in order.

In the 1990s, the US made major strides in reversing its competititiveness deficit so that by decade’s end it was leading the global economy. However, as Pisano and Shih make clear, those strides were temporary and the problem has returned.  The competitiveness issue, the authors show, is far more problematic today than  at any time in American history.  And if this issue is not satisfactorily addressed, the US will not see wages, standards of living or other metrics of welfare rise. As NDN has long argued and as the HBR authors note as well, stagnant wages combined with rising expectations led to the absurd borrowing that precipitated the latest financial crisis.

In short, if the US is to reap the economic rewards of a clean technology revolution, we need to seriously examine our competitiveness posture and take the steps needed to put us back on track to leading, not lagging the global economy.

The Price of Energy Security

By
Jake Berliner
Published: June 17, 2008

The Front Page of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal features an excellent article by Guy Chazan entitled “Russia Outflanks EU’s Pipeline Bid.” The article describes Russia’s efforts to dominate European natural gas supply and politics by outmaneuvering American backed European attempts to build a pipeline to make them less reliant on Russian natural gas. The potential for heavy-handed petropolitics, exemplified by Russia’s 2006 shut-off of gas to Ukraine, has American policy makers concerned once more about Russia’s political influence in Europe.

During the Cold War, the balance of power was measured in nuclear warheads. Now a new kind of contest is playing out. The battlefield is Europe’s energy market. The objective is pipeline proliferation. And Russia is winning.

Europe is witnessing a race between two mammoth pipeline projects that would bring natural gas to the Continent from the Caspian and beyond. One of the plans — hatched in Europe, championed by Washington and named for a Verdi opera — has been hobbled by bureaucracy. The other, backed by the Kremlin, is rolling ahead with a speed and success that has surprised and frustrated the West. The outcome could shape energy supplies, and political influence, in Europe for decades to come.

Europe is not the only place this dynamic is playing out. Chinese influence in oil-rich African nations has been much maligned due to a policy emphasis energy security, even at the expense of human rights. (Sudan is only one, albeit the most publicized, example of Chinese influence on the region.) This political turmoil, as well as high prices domestically, means that energy security has emerged as a hot topic in American media.

Responding to Chazan’s article on the Wall Street Journal’s “Environmental Capital” blog, Keith Johnson argues that:

You can have energy security, you can give consumers a break, or you can do something for the environment. But aiming for all three at once—that is, what passes for energy policy in the U.S. and Europe—appears next to impossible.

Take the U.S. High oil prices have given legs to Big Oil’s demand for more access to federal lands and coastal areas—a bid for energy security–even while many in Congress are still opposed. But environmentalists figure high oil prices will spur alternative energy and help fight climate change. The Liberman-Warner climate bill foundered thanks in part to high energy prices right now. Meanwhile, the consumer gets whacked regardless—with higher gas prices, or higher electricity bills, or both.
…

As the scramble for energy heats up, it’s useful to remember that the rules of the game aren’t changing—the game itself is. Energy policy isn’t a cardigan moment or a Rose Garden speech—it’s become the currency of international influence. And the countries that ruthlessly focus on one pillar, rather than trying to juggle all three, are more likely to come out ahead.

Johnson is incorrect to argue that this is a new dynamic, however. Energy security has been the backbone of American politics in the Middle East since the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, and what has been called a “New Great Game” in Central Asia has been an ongoing chess match over oil and natural gas for decades. Johnson is correct that a ruthless pursuit of energy security is more likely to work than other approaches, but the solution to this energy security issue has little to do with climate or economic security. Rather, Europe needs to employ stronger policies and act in a more hard-nosed fashion against Russian advances, and doing so does not mean subverting goals of handling climate change. This is more a matter of having leadership that knows when the trade-off of playing hardball in favor of political security is well worth it.

Securing Energy and the Economy: Avoiding short-term policy traps

The fundamentally new elements of the energy paradigm are that these resources are no longer available on the cheap in the Western world, in large part due to the rise of the developing world, especially Asia, and the concern about climate change. Johnson seems to argue that pursuing energy and climate security while trying to keep energy costs low is impossible. In the short term, he is probably correct. In the longer term, he couldn’t be more wrong. And, in the short term, there are better ways to protect consumers.

The link between energy and economic security is easy to see. If countries do not pursue energy security, they become unable to feed their economies and maintain economic security – talk about a hit to consumers. In the short term though, pursuing lower energy prices can come at the expensive of both energy and climate security and results in silly ides, like a gas tax holiday or opening up off shore drilling.

Thomas Friedman, in yesterday’s New York Times, weighed in on the dire policy consequences of Egypt’s attempts to keep energy prices low:

From Shubra we drive into the desert toward Alexandria. The highway is full of cars. How can all these Egyptians afford to be driving, I wonder? Answer: The government will spend almost $11 billion this year to subsidize gasoline and cooking fuel; gas here is only about $1.30 a gallon. Sounds like a good deal for the poor — only the poor have no cars, and the fuel subsidies mean less money for mass transit.

Think about these numbers: This year Egypt will spend $6 billion on education and $3 billion on health care, far less than the subsidies for fuel. This is a terrible trap. The subsidies should have been phased out when food and fuel prices were lower. Now that they have soared, the pain of removing the subsidies would be politically suicidal. So education and health care get killed instead.

America is not currently in the trap Friedman describes, but with the wrong policies, could find itself moving in that direction. Incentives must be designed to stimulate infant technologies and decrease in amount over time as those technologies commercialize and scale, not the other way around.

Securing Energy and Climate: Building the 21st Century Economy

Climate and energy security are also not mutually exclusive. If all the West cared about was energy security, America could just build all the coal plants it wanted. We are, after all, the Saudi Arabia of coal. But that is fundamentally not in our climate or economic security interests.

What America needs is a policy that is focused on energy and climate security, indeed such a policy must see the two as interrelated, and must encourage the scaling of technologies capable of taking the place of fossil fuels. Building a 21st century post-carbon economy will not be simple and will not happen tomorrow, by this November, or by November of 2012, but failing to get on that path will ultimately prove the most difficult available option, as failure means economic surrender. Conventional sources of energy will remain important into the future, but the faster America is able to transition away from a hydrocarbon economy, the better our economic, energy, and climate security will be.