US energy chief struggles to shift debate

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

"
US energy chief struggles to shift debate

By Anna Fifield and Edward Luce

Published: February 17 2010

Steven Chu describes the ‘Climategate’ data controversy as ‘a little wart on
the overall amount of information’


Steven Chu, the Nobel prize-winning physicist, is fast discovering that
science is not enough when it comes to winning the climate change debate in
Washington.

A year after President Barack Obama appointed the mild-mannered Stanford
academic as energy secretary, Mr Chu is struggling to convince an
increasingly partisan Congress that the US cannot afford to delay
far-reaching reforms, from nuclear policy to reducing carbon emissions.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
FT interview transcript: Steven Chu - Feb-17

“We’re in a crazy never-never land situation,” he said, describing how
companies were not making investments and banks were not supplying loans
because of the uncertainty about when, or whether, a cap on carbon would be
imposed. “Let’s recognise that we’re postponing an inevitability.”

Equally important, the US runs the risk of falling behind China which is
investing more than $100bn in alternative energy, reducing its dependence on
inefficient coal plants.

“They [the Chinese] missed the first industrial revolution. They missed in
large part the computer and biotech revolutions. They don’t want to miss
this one,” he said. “That is something I think the United States and other
countries should sit up and take notice of.”

Mr Chu was speaking in his Washington office, where climate change
legislation has become bogged down in Congress.

Mr Obama has been pushing for a new law that would impose limits on US
carbon emissions and set up a trading scheme through which large polluters
would have to buy permits to emit more.

The legislation is part of his campaign pledge to make the US a more
responsible global citizen by cutting emissions, while creating high-tech
jobs.

The House passed a version of a climate-change bill last summer, but the
Senate has been dragging its heels.

Now, with job creation and healthcare reform taking priority and with
Democrats losing their “super-majority” in the Senate, climate change has
further slipped down the agenda and few politicians or pundits expect the
bill to be passed this year.

The process has been further hamstrung by the lack of consensus at the
Copenhagen summit in December, and by recent disputes over climate science
findings.

The most damaging has been the “Climategate” incident in which scientists
from East Anglia University in the UK were accused of burying evidence that
did not support their claims about global warming.

But Mr Chu said there was no cause for equivocation. “The public polls go up
and down, with Climategate and all these other things. But if you step back
and dispassionately look at it, this is a little wart on the overall amount
of information.”

The administration remained committed to passing a comprehensive energy and
cap-and-trade bill, he said. “I’m here because I think we can do this.”

This week, Mr Obama made a new push on green energy, saying the government
would guarantee $8.3bn in loans for two nuclear reactors to be built in the
US state of Georgia, the first to be built since the 1979 Three Mile Island
meltdown.

Mr Chu notes that China already has 21 reactors under construction, and sees
this sector as a growth industry.

Nuclear power should be an issue on which the Obama administration can gain
cross-party support, given that Republicans have called for 100 reactors to
be built.

“I think there are half a dozen to a dozen [Republicans] who understand the
international context and they certainly know about the climate threat and
are very concerned about that,” said Mr Chu. “In my heart of hearts, this is
a non-partisan issue.”

But increasingly partisan bickering in Washington has made climate change a
political rather than economic or security issue. Many Republicans who agree
with Mr Chu’s warnings are no longer saying so publicly.

The energy secretary singled out for praise Lindsey Graham, the Republican
senator from South Carolina who is actively promoting climate change
legislation, saying that he had taken “a very brave stand”.

But Mr Chu may well find that pushing through climate change and clean
energy legislation will make winning a Nobel prize seem easy.

[ Read the full interview online at www.ft.com/chu
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article
tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or
post to the web. ]
"

Zo te zien lijkt het verlaten van de ene agenda een andere te voeden,
waarbij opnieuw weer gebruik gemaakt wordt van dezelfde misleidende
informatie ... ?!

Henk Elegeert

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********