|
|
|
|
Advertisement
With the Obama administration focusing on addressing some of the low-hanging fruit like conservation and energy efficiency to tackle our energy and climate challenges, energy efficiency has become a key issue in policy discussions in the United States. E&ETV traveled to Paris for the annual Energy Efficiency Global Forum and Exposition, hosted by the Alliance to Save Energy, for a series of interviews and panel discussions about the challenges to, and potential of, energy efficiency. Today's segment features E&ETV's interview with Björn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Stigson explains how government and industry can work together to expand and promote energy efficiency. He also discusses the prospects for climate legislation in the United States.
Monica Trauzzi: Mr. Stigson, thank you for joining me today.
Björn Stigson: My pleasure, thank you.
Monica Trauzzi: WBCSD brings together about 200 companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainable development. From where you sit, does the leadership need to come from government or from the business sector when it comes to energy efficiency and sustainability?
Björn Stigson: We need a partnership. Market forces alone won't be able to deliver the type of reductions that we want. So we need to complement actions in business by the right type of supportive policy frameworks that can stimulate action. The levers for taking action, for different parts of society, are sometimes not strong enough without the help of policies.
Monica Trauzzi: And where do you see your organization's biggest influence in terms of global policy development on climate and sustainability?
Björn Stigson: Well, we are the leading global business voice on sustainable development broadly and, in particular, on the broad connection between energy and climate and we are a discussions partner to like the UNFCCC. We are discussion partners to the major economist meetings. I've taken part in that. With the G-8, with the G-20, Glen Eagles dialogue, we were officially a party to that. So we are trying to bring the business perspective, business thinking, telling governments what is it that business needs to be able to deliver? Because business is the main delivery mechanism, we are the ones that own the majority of the technology. We are the ones that implement it in the marketplace. So whatever we agree as a plan forward on climate change, it has to make business sense.
Monica Trauzzi: President Obama, however, has received a lot of criticism for trying to tackle energy and climate in the current economic downturn. Can we afford to be sustainable and implement all of these sustainable practices?
Björn Stigson: Well, we don't see this as a big burden on the economy. When we look at actions on energy efficiency we see short payback terms. Will we have an immediate payback? Of course not. So you can always discuss when you put policies in place, should you start in 2009 or do you put the policies in place and they really kick in in 2010 or beginning 2011 when we probably are in a little bit of a different phase of the economic cycle? But for us this is not an either or, you do this or you save the economy. A lot of what you do on energy efficiency will create jobs. It's often very local actions, if you take buildings as an example. Our estimate is that if we go forward with an aggressive plan for energy efficiency in buildings we will create 2 million jobs in the U.S. alone and that will be local jobs and not only high-level jobs, but electricians, installers and so on that can install the equipment that we already have today. So this is something that you can get going with very quickly.
Monica Trauzzi: Is there specific legislation in the U.S. Congress right now that's been drafted are ready that you think will do the job or does Congress continue to have to work to get something that's appropriate?
Björn Stigson: Well, as we know, there are elements of the recovery act that has quite a lot of money for these kinds of actions. So the money is there, technology is there, it is getting it out in to the economy to the people that are really going to spend the money and take action that is needed. So it doesn't seem to me, at least as a foreigner, that it is primarily a legislative issue. It's now an implementation issue. A lot of the things are there.
Monica Trauzzi: On cap and trade, the cap and trade debate is in full swing in the United States and the House Energy and Commerce Committee recently postponed the markup of the energy and climate bill that they are considering and it seems that they've postponed it because Democrats and Republicans are not in sync, so they can't move forward with it just yet. What do you see as the prospects for domestic legislation this year and then moving forward to Copenhagen, what do you expect will happen?
Björn Stigson: Well, let me first stress that I'm a foreigner when it comes to the U.S., so you have to take my comments as the views from someone who is sitting on the sideline watching. But I am also engaged in a committee requested by Congress, set up by the National Academies of Science called America's Climate Choices, as the only foreigner. So I'm, in that sense, engaged in the discussions. I wanted to qualify what I was saying from that perspective. My perception is there will be something passed in the House of Representatives during the year. My perception is it will be very difficult to get it through Senate short-term. So I would believe that President Obama will not have a domestic policy framework in place before Copenhagen, which will probably make it difficult for the U.S. to take a more stronger position in Copenhagen. But if the U.S. can send positive signals that it is committed to do things that will have positive impact on the tone and climate of the discussion. And I believe that what is key in this process is that there is more of a dialogue between the U.S. and China on how they see things together. If I can add one thing that I have met when being in the U.S., and I have spent, over the last four weeks, I spent about 10 days in the U.S. One thing that I have met is that there are rather many myths in the U.S. about what is happening in the rest of the world. And I've been asked by business interests in the U.S. to help kill some of these myths. One myth is that the E.U. ETS, the emissions trading in Europe does not work. It has actually worked. One myth is that China is not doing anything on climate. They are doing a lot and so if we are going to solve this problem we have to kill some of the myths that others are not doing something and it's only we that are now considering doing something.
Monica Trauzzi: Okay, some food for thought to end on. Thank you for joining me today.
Björn Stigson: My pleasure.
[End of Audio]
Advertisement
watch video
email video
