What’s holding us back when it comes to creating green climate policies?
A certain ennui seems to haunt the climate change conversation—that is, when it’s not being framed as a controversial debate. Myopic politicians are not necessarily the only ones at fault in this; though there exists a sizeable and passionate constituency of popular activism surrounding environmental policy—and global warming in particular—many American voters express ambivalence about the issue. A March 2014 Gallup poll found that climate change was not an issue of paramount concern to most Americans—only 24% claimed that they were very concerned, a decline from previous years. In fact, Americans were generally more concerned about the cost of energy than the quality of the environment, and topping the list of the nation’s worries was the economy.
Taking into account not only this context, but also the history of how new energy technologies have emerged and overtaken markets in the past, it becomes clear that if green energy is to prove itself to be more than a pipe dream in the 21st century it needs to prove itself as an economically viable alternative to the existing “brown” energy technologies. This raises the question succinctly presented in John Zysman and Mark Huberty’s 2013 book: Can Green Sustain Growth?
Their book explores how we can move from merely touting the values of a green economy to actually ushering in substantive paradigm shifts that make sustainability a reality. Below, co-author John Zysman, fields some questions about the challenges that lie ahead.
Q:
You note that successes in green energy policy tend to start as local initiatives, but rarely translate to more ambitious national policies owing to political gridlock. Where do you think this gridlock comes from?
JOHN ZYSMAN: National gridlock suggests that we have not yet seen the emergence of a strong national coalition composed of interests supporting forward movement on climate regulation. Of course, politics always matter, and certainly gridlock can partly be a result of partisan politics. But we find that when gridlock hangs on (and on, and on) as it has in climate, it’s because interests remain divided on an issue. In the United States the national conversation has tended to be between environmentalists on the one hand, and fossil fuels-heavy industry interests on the other hand. But there is a growing set of interests that are learning how to profit from green energy—such as solar and wind manufacturers, or utilities that have begun to install green generation. The larger this set of interests grows, the more likely we are to see a national coalition between environmentalists and industry that can move regulation forward out of gridlock.
Q:
Historically, shifts in energy sources—from wood to coal, to oil, to electrification—have been driven by economic incentives: Could green technologies become more efficient or profitable than "brown" ones?
JOHN ZYSMAN: Absolutely. Current fossil fuel technologies are fully mature—they’ve had a long time to develop and improve their efficiency. But fossil fuel combustion isn’t a particularly inherently efficient way to make energy. Renewable energy technologies are still fairly early in their development, but we’re seeing that they’ve come down substantially in price just in the last few years. Moreover, as we become more familiar with these technologies and how to integrate them into grids, we’ll learn more about what specific applications they may enable. For instance, distributed renewable power may actually be a better solution for countries that would otherwise need to build sprawling transmission infrastructure to connect widely dispersed villages to an electrical grid.
Q:
Have there been any significant changes in the energy landscape since your book was published last year?
JOHN ZYSMAN: Many of the big stories recently have been in fossil fuels, with the rise of natural gas, the increase in development of unconventional oil sources like oil sands, and the pursuit of new oil discoveries in key states like Brazil. These obviously have the potential to distract from the conversation around renewable energy. The rise of natural gas is a very interesting trend because its effects are ambiguous. On the one hand, gas is substantially cleaner than coal and oil, so it can help reduce carbon emissions in the short term. On the other hand, it has the potential to dominate the national conversation to the exclusion of renewables.
The EPA’s coming emissions regulations are also of obvious importance. We think the thing to watch here is whether and to what extent those regulations encourage the growth of green industries that know how to profit in a low-carbon economy and hence will support that transition. That’s a big part of our research focus right now.
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John Zysman is Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley, where he also serves as Co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy and the Center for Research in Energy Systems Transformations. He is the co-author of Can Green Sustain Growth? and has served as a consultant to a variety of governments and companies across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
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