The US President, along with the US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, proposed the now infamous Wall Street bailout plan which was jointly negotiated by both Republican and Democratic representatives. The proposal has just been rejected 228 to 205 votes, by Congress. All this has taken place in less than two weeks, against the background fear of the ‘collapse’ of the financial market. It seems that the Senate will now debate it on Wednesday October 1st, 2008.
Now, if the US President and all the politicians can muster the political will to do this for the economy, why can they not do the same for the environment? In fact, the economy and the environment are now so intimately linked – at least in political-speak, as they so often like to tell us. This factor being one of the major reasons why the US does not want to ratify Kyoto, on the presumption it will negatively affect the economy.
Maybe we should all be looking at this financial nightmare on Wall Street from a different angle and consider just what can be done by a determined political drive in all our countries to fix something that is wrong, especially if it is in the public’s best interests. It seems that once motivated, the politicians are capable of moving mountains – of money at least. So let’s consider some better ways to spend these dollars – in a way that would benefit the US, the planet, and the financial institutions on Wall Street.
The United Nations just published on September 24th their report, “Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World”, in which they state “A global transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy can create large numbers of green jobs across many sectors of the economy, and indeed can become an engine of development”.
If the US is prepared to spend 5.1% of its GDP on bailing out the financial markets yet it will not ratify Kyoto or spend the 1% needed to green itself, then it seems that something is grossly amiss in how the politicians view the world in which we live.
The associated UN press release states “The global market for environmental products and services is projected to double from US$1,370 billion (1.37 trillion) per year at present to US$2,740 billion (2.74 trillion) by 2020”. It further adds that “Renewable energy generates more jobs than employment in fossil fuels. Projected investments of US$630 billion by 2030 would translate into at least 20 million additional jobs in the renewable energy sector”. If only some of that $700billion could be spent on green jobs now, and accelerate the ‘greening’ of the US and the world. This seems like a much better idea.
It is not just the UN reporting such a conclusion. Also quoted within the UN report is the Apollo Alliance Study that “proposed that an $89.9 billion investment in financing for green buildings, providing tax incentives, investing in research and development, and promoting new building codes and standards, could create up to 827,260 new jobs in the US in the building sector alone”. The objective would be to increase the energy efficiency of homes and buildings, which is one of the best ways to reduce the carbon footprint.
All these jobs would be good paying employment, covering non-technical, manual, technical, scientific, engineering, managerial and business careers. The employment would be in the building, transportation, manufacturing, financing, energy generation and recycling industries, to name but a few. The positive effect on the world economy would be enormous, and much better than buying up bad loan debt. The invested money would bring about sustainable growth, and well-paid, good karma jobs.
The financial institutions now at the centre of all this mess on Wall Street, after a good clearing out of the ones that may not have been quite so diligent, could be tasked with implementing a carbon-tax system that would rapidly bring about positive changes in all aspects of business in the US, and the world for that matter. Europe already has a carbon trading system in place, one that desperately needs to be integrated with a North American one.
We can only hope that, perhaps after the next Katrina-like disaster that the politicians of the world will see the writing on the wall, pull together and spend the 1% of their GDP on fighting the global environmental crisis.
If another report by an authoritative body were needed, and it really is not, then one only has to look at the UK Government Stern Report, which stated that the costs of dealing with climate change, if it is addressed now, is around 1% of world gross domestic product (GDP). If nothing is done, apart from all the cataclysmic effects to the eco-systems and life on planet Earth, the cost to the world GDP is anywhere from 5 to 20%.
Now, according to the CIA, the US GDP is 13.84 trillion dollars, so 700 billion is 5.1% of the GDP. Therefore, if the US is prepared to spend 5.1% of its GDP on bailing out the financial markets yet it will not ratify Kyoto or spend the 1% needed to green itself, then it seems that something is grossly amiss in how the politicians view the world in which we live.
It is not just the US where this is happening – there does not seem to be any country, government, or people, willing to spend 1% of their wealth on dealing with global warming. However, the US seems to be now straining under the enormous pressure of being the world’s pre-eminent Superpower, financial and industrial powerhouse. Perhaps, now given some hindsight and with political foresight, the US can once again become a world leader by taking the lead in the greening of the world economy.
If not now then we can only hope that, perhaps after the next Katrina-like disaster, or round of rampant heat-waves, forest fires, or floods in Europe and elsewhere, that the politicians of the world will see the writing on the wall, pull together and spend the measely 1% of their GDP on fighting the global environmental crisis. It is the climate problems that seems to be a real crisis that gets worse each day and one that ultimately has no bail out at the end, only the possibility of stopping it from getting unbearable worse if we do something now.
References
United Nations: http://www.unep.org/
Apollo Alliance: http://apolloalliance.org/
Stern Report: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm
Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specialising in renewable energy, power grid modelling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites.
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