In Climate Chaos, Opportunity

The politics of climate change are evolving rapidly.
December 1, 2009 – Western Business Roundtable

• Calls for investigations into the so-called "Climategate" scandal resulted in today's stepping down of the chief climate scientist at the University of East Anglia (Phil Jones) over allegations that he "overstated the case for man-made climate change." See this recent dispatch from the Associated Press.
  
• Members of Congress from both parties will soon start calling on Congress and EPA to "slow down" the rush to enact comprehensive climate legislation and regulations because of this scandal.
  
• Public opposition continues to rise against highly complex, economically punitive cap-and-trade bills.
  
• Lawsuits are expected to be filed soon -- from both the left and the right -- against the U.S. EPA's efforts to force greenhouse gas regulations onto the economy under the current Clean Air Act.
  

Against this backdrop, Members of Congress, Governors and state legislators are all starting to realize another truth: even if Congress enacts a carbon management bill this year, it will be a decade or longer to be implemented after the avalanche of court challenges that can be expected from both the political right and left.

The Opportunity Now Facing Business and Industry
This rapidly evolving chaos presents business and industry with a rare opportunity: to shift Congress' focus toward providing immediate, powerful, broad-based incentives that spur technology development and deployment across the economy.

Our nation needs more energy production from all resources, we need more mineral and metal production, we need more transportation and transmission capacity and we need more manufacturing output, we need more agricultural output -- and all can be enhanced with new technologies to make them more efficient and produce less emissions of all kinds.

This opportunity -- and ideas for what incentives Congress can move on now -- will be the subject of discussion by a host of experts at the 7th Annual Business Summit of the West in Phoenix on January 4-6 in Phoenix, Arizona.