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11. Green Stimulus Proposals in the United States and China

Author:
David B. Sandalow and Xu Qinhua
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
Abstract:
On June 14, 2020 New York time and June 15, 2020 Beijing time, the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and Center for International Energy and Environment Strategy Studies at Renmin University convened a joint Zoom workshop on green stimulus programs in the US and China. The workshop offered a chance for scholars from the two universities to explore the recent economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulus measures adopted to date and green stimulus proposals in both countries. Participants also discussed other measures to promote clean energy and low-carbon development in the US and China.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Green Technology, and Paris Agreement
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

12. Energizing America

Author:
Varun Sivaram, Colin Cunliff, David Hart, Julio Friendmann, and David B. Sandalow
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
Abstract:
Clean energy innovation is central to the fight against climate change. The dramatic success in lowering the costs of solar panels and wind turbines in the past decade must be replicated across a wide range of other energy technologies. Doing so will open extraordinary economic opportunities. To rise to this challenge, the United States should launch a National Energy Innovation Mission. Led by the president and authorized by Congress, this mission should harness the nation’s unmatched innovative capabilities—at research universities, federal laboratories, and private firms (both large and small), in all regions of the country—to speed the progress of clean energy technologies. To jumpstart this mission and unlock a virtuous cycle of public and private investment, the US federal government should triple its funding for energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) over the next five years.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Green Technology, Renewable Energy, Wind Power, Solar Power, and Safe Energy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

13. New York City’s Building Emissions Law Shows the Importance of Economywide Climate Policy

Author:
Noah Kaufman and Yu Ann Tan
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
Abstract:
Regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, which are global pollutants, should ideally be coordinated across broad geographic and economic scopes. That way, climate policies can capture important interactions across sectors and borders. However, the United States has repeatedly failed to implement national and economywide climate legislation. That failure has led to an increasing focus on climate actions that are much narrower in scope: sector-specific regulations from subnational governments. A prominent recent example is New York City’s Local Law 97, which limits carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from a large segment of the city’s residential and commercial buildings. This law is among the most ambitious building emissions regulations in the world, but this commentary focuses on a concern with the design of Local Law 97. The law does not account for the planned decarbonization of the local electricity grid over the next decade, and thus fails to sufficiently encourage a shift from fossil fuels to electricity (or “electrification”), a critically important strategy for achieving a low-carbon building sector. Such a narrow focus is common for sector-specific climate regulations. The following sections explain the importance of electrification to deep decarbonization and the failure of building regulations to encourage it, focusing on New York City’s Local Law 97. Fortunately, solutions to the overly narrow focus of the New York City buildings law are readily available, including via New York State’s comprehensive climate strategy, which can align climate action across economic sectors within the state.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Law, Green Technology, and Carbon Emissions
Political Geography:
New York, North America, and United States of America

14. Financing Green Growth

Author:
Gregor Semieniuk and Mariana Mazzucato
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London
Abstract:
This paper surveys the current state of financing green growth in the energy sector, based on the insight that there are different qualities of finance. In past transformational changes in other sectors, public monies played a key role across the innovation landscape. Public financing was central also in a number of past national energy transitions, as reviewed here for Iceland (from fossil to geothermal energy), Norway (from mainly non-electricity energy to hydroelectricity), France (from oil to nuclear) and the United States (from conventional to shale gas). In the current transition to low-carbon energy supplies, there is much public activity, most directed and concerted in China, but also reasons to doubt it is enough and applied in the right places to be able to finance the transition to a low carbon sector on time scales consistent with current climate change mitigation targets. A discussion of opportunities and challenges to a more central role for public financing concludes, drawing also on insights from the recent mission-oriented innovation literature.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Finance, Green Technology, and Renewable Energy
Political Geography:
China, Europe, Asia, France, North America, Iceland, and United States of America

15. The Business of Peace through Green Energy: The HomeBiogas Story

Author:
Yair Teller
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
Abstract:
Yair Teller discusses how he is using his company, HomeBiogas, as a mechanism for peace building, sustainable development, women’s empowerment, and improvement of the quality of health and life for citizens of developing countries. Yair Teller is chief scientist and co-founder of the HomeBiogas Company based in Netanya, Israel. HomeBiogas produces a household renewable energy appliance that recycles kitchen waste into cooking gas and organic fertilizer. Profits from sales to suburban customers and a successful crowd-funding campaign are used to support donation of HomeBiogas units to economically disadvantaged Bedouin, Palestinian, and Ugandan families for alleviation of poverty. The work of HomeBiogas has been recognized by the UN and the Peres Center for Peace.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Science and Technology, Women, Gas, Business, and Green Technology
Political Geography:
Uganda, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North America, and United States of America