U.S. Secretary of Energy Reflects on Innovation During Obama Years
While the world’s nations remain deeply divided on many issues, the passing of the 2015 Paris agreement shows they are in accord about one thing: addressing the challenge of climate change.
On October 13, the Center on Global Energy Policy hosted U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz for a discussion of President Obama’s climate action plan and the administration’s efforts to address energy and nuclear security. He said the Paris agreement represented an important step forward in tackling the problem of climate change, but warned against complacency derailing future progress.
“It’s remarkable that it has gone from negotiation to agreement to implementation in under a year. It has put us on the trajectory to decrease emission by 2025, but ambition will have to keep us on the path,” said Moniz.
The secretary suggested there is strong bipartisan support within the government for tackling climate change, but said it “needs to be transformed into numbers.”
Even as the Obama administration waits for this support to manifest in legislative form, it has utilized the executive branch’s powers to take action against climate change on its own. And while the Climate Action Plan is driven by, and identified with, President Obama, Moniz argued that there is no need to worry about the next president ending the implementation of the plan.
“There is more stability in this program than meets the eye,” he said. “There is a lot of buy-in so you can’t just get rid of it.”
Moniz continued, suggesting that that fostering innovation is key to the plan’s goals of “cutting carbon emissions, increasing production of clean energy and double downing on energy efficiency.”
He said “innovation is at the core of the agenda and that there is strong support for innovation to fund regional partnerships,” adding that “we need to use innovation partnerships in different ways in our country.”
Moniz also said the government has missed opportunities to encourage innovation in nuclear security and the energy sector due to shortsightedness.
“There is unexploited innovation potential in this country,” he said. “Funding is causing us to leave a lot of great ideas on the table.”
Therefore, he concluded, if policymakers hope to successfully mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, they must implement policies that create incentives for innovation in the energy sector.
“We need to get our signals straight on the tech and policy side,” Moniz said, “and pretty soon.”
The talk, part of SIPA’s annual Energy Leaders Forum, was followed by an audience Q&A moderated by Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy.
— Serina Bellamy MIA ’17