As the nations of the world assemble in Copenhagen, Denmark this week to complete the first step toward a binding agreement to confront climate change, naysayers are running out of reasons to delay or deny progress. The United States and China, which account for some forty percent of global greenhouse gas pollution, have put concrete proposals and commitments on the table in recent days, as have many other key countries. Now the pushback seems to be: how will we know if emission reductions are being carried out? There is a way.

Twenty-three years ago, on October 11, 1986, in Reykjavik, Iceland, President Ronald Reagan and the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, agreed in principle to a mutual reduction of nuclear warheads. Later, when he signed the agreement at the White House, President Reagan quoted the Russian proverb “doveryai, no proveryai” (“trust but verify”) suggesting that trust is fine but what is needed is actual verification. With that one phrase, the president swept aside years of impasse based on mistrust. In three years, over 2,600 weapons were destroyed in the agreement known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Now the United States and 190 other nations are negotiating another agreement for reductions, this time of polluting greenhouse gases. They will try to reach an accord at the meeting of signatory countries to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark this month. Pollution is already creating widespread damage and it threatens catastrophe if left unchecked. A handful of countries produce most of the greenhouse gas emissions, including the U.S., China, European countries, India, and a few others. But China has become the focus of debate in the United States, because the emissions of China and the U.S. together are so large.

We need an agreement, but mistrust is again an obstacle. Some people say we cannot sign a treaty or even pass climate legislation because they fear that China will steal American jobs by being dirty and cheap. The reality is that while the U.S. delays, China is moving to lead in technologies that are innovative and clean. Nonetheless, deep mistrust remains a barrier to cooperation on technology deployment and agreement on pollution reduction.

The solution now, as at Reykjavik, is to “trust but verify.” It is essential for each side to make commitments in an international agreement and provide verification. Confidence will follow not because we can trust everyone to do what they say, but because we will be able to verify the results of what they do to carry out commitments under a global agreement.

Two decades ago, people worried about negotiating with the Soviet Union. To begin to solve the great threat of nuclear war, we had to figure out a way to cooperate notwithstanding doubts. So today, with carbon reduction, verification is perfectly feasible. In fact, we already have experience with environmental monitoring on which to build.

The main culprit causing global warming is the burning of fossil fuels to make electricity, to run automobiles, and in manufacturing. To reduce fossil fuel emissions, countries must adopt more energy efficient technology and shift to low carbon energy sources, including wind, solar, and nuclear power. This low carbon energy path holds the promise of new business opportunities and jobs as well as avoiding damaging global warming.

To ensure verification of actions to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, countries must collect data from industry, subject to review and analysis. In the U.S., we are familiar with verifying compliance under our pollution laws. We have seen this work internationally under the Montreal Protocol, the treaty to eliminate chemicals contributing to ozone depletion, a dangerous problem that is on the road to solution. We are also familiar with verification under the peer review process of the World Trade Organization and other agreements. Through continuous review of each others’ actions, countries ensure that their competitors are playing by the rules.

With respect to China, this will not require a revolutionary new system. China is a party to the Montreal Protocol and a WTO member. China has invited international analysts to visit, and make recommendations about, its environmental programs. It has been working for years with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency experts in a successful undertaking to improve its efforts to reduce sulfur dioxide air pollution. Also, on its own, China has begun to require reporting and verification of industry clean energy measures. China has experience on which our negotiators can build. Moreover, the U.S. could invest in satellite tracking as an additional way to help check up on whether China is meeting its commitments.

The Chinese and English languages share the expression “we are all in the same boat.” This commonly-held metaphor suggests our respective people understand why we need to work together. Nations that cooperate to achieve common objectives figure out ways to ensure everyone is doing their part to keep afloat. We have the means to verify action on global warming. Let’s not allow fear and suspicion to sink efforts to confront the global warming that threatens all of us.

With the climate change talks set to start in Copenhagen today, it’s important to understand what exactly China and other large developing countries are bringing to the negotiating table. China’s recent announcement that it would improve its carbon dioxide emissions intensity—that is, emissions per unit of economic output—45% percent between 2005 and 2020 is little or no better than “business as usual,” depending on whose forecast you use. The same can be said of India’s just-announced goal of a 20% to 25% reduction in intensity over the same period (its target actually appears to be worse than business as usual). One thing we can say for certain is that in both countries, emissions in 2020 will be considerably higher (by anywhere from 50% to 90%) than they were in 2005, even if these goals are met.

We also shouldn’t forget that even as both countries are talking green and even taking some small steps to walk green, they’re still putting their green into traditional oil, natural gas, and coal plays overseas. This should surprise no one: Developing countries have made it abundantly clear that, with billions of people still lacking electricity, providing modern and affordable energy services to lift their people out of poverty remains a priority.

While it’s significant that these countries have come forward with national targets, neither China nor India—nor any other large developing country, for that matter—has offered to make its national goal a legally binding commitment under a new international agreement. What we’re probably seeing here are the opening gambits in very complex negotiations. I think we’ll shortly discover that getting China and India to move beyond what they already have put on the table will come with a hefty price tag.

As we consider the implications the negotiations will have on job creation, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a bad agreement—and bad domestic legislation, too—would ship existing U.S. jobs overseas, especially those from energy intensive industries. To avoid this, we need an agreement that doesn’t tilt the competitive playing field against U.S. industry. And to do that, large developing economies, like China, India, and Brazil, must signal their willingness to commit to realistically ambitious and binding goals. That will be one of the real tests coming out of Copenhagen that will have tremendous implications for U.S. policy.

The international climate change negotiations process got a significant boost last week when China announced that it will lower its carbon emissions relative to the size of its economy by as much as 45 percent by 2020. At this point, all major countries have stepped forward to announce their climate actions for the post-2012 commitment period. With all the major players in the circle, it makes it safe for each to take serious action without fear of adverse impacts on their international competitiveness. Whether or not China’s announcement will impact the domestic U.S. debate on climate change and advancing a green energy economy is yet to be seen, but it should.

For twelve years, Congress has been asking for action by developing countries and now we have that with Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, India and China announcing their plans. According to an analysis by my organization — The Center for Clean Air Policy — China, Brazil and Mexico have put in place national laws that collectively, if fully implemented, will reduce their projected growth in emissions by more aggregate tons in 2010 than what current U.S. legislation is projected to achieve by 2015. So the myth that developing countries are not taking action has been shattered.

China has taken bold action to reduce emissions and deploy renewable energy and energy efficiency on a grand scale. The country has shut down scores of gigawatts of small coal-fired power plants and is poised to become a leader in carbon capture and sequestration technology. It led the world in renewables investment in 2007 with over $10.8 billion, and it is expected to surpass Germany as the world leader in 2010. At 36.7 mpg, its vehicle efficiency standards are years ahead of the U.S. Additionally, China dedicated 40 percent of its $586 billion economic stimulus package toward renewable energy, low carbon vehicles, high speed rail and other energy projects. Compare that with the U.S. which is spending roughly 10 percent of its $787 billion recovery package on similar programs.

China has recognized, perhaps more quickly than the U.S., the economic benefits of expanded energy efficiency and renewable energy and the global economic opportunity that exists to lead in these new markets. It is critical for the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation. Capping emissions and placing a price on carbon will provide businesses with regulatory certainty, and it will drive innovation and investment needed to create the clean energy jobs of the future and ensure U.S. leadership in new energy technologies.

How does bringing China to the table on emissions reduction change the domestic debate?

President Hu Jintao’s recent announcement of China’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 will have a profound impact on domestic deliberations on climate change.

It was concern expressed by the Bush administration and some legislators about the climate treaty’s exemption of China and other big developing world polluters that precipitated the US’s refusal to ratify Kyoto. US skeptics of a global climate agreement especially cited the fact that China made no commitments as justification for discrediting the whole process. Now, thirteen years later, on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, China’s ambitious reduction targets must surely go a long way to killing this longstanding resistance.

It’s going to be much harder for such skeptics to call for a rejection of any deal tabled in Copenhagen, or of the American Clean Energy and Security Bill, now that China has finally stepped up to the plate.

Furthermore, China’s bold announcement has precipitated impressive commitments from other large developing nations, including Indonesia whose president recently announced similar reduction targets.

Any reluctance among the American public to accept GHG-reduction measures will surely erode as awareness builds of tangible promises from poorer countries to contribute solutions to the climate conundrum.

The success of the Copenhagen climate change conference mainly rides on the involvement of two key players United States and China.

Never in 17 years history of climate negotiations have so many different countries made so many pledges to reducing GHG emissions. This all bodes well for increased American support for climate mitigation measures.

Is the United States dedicating enough attention and resources to ensuring our workforce can compete for clean energy jobs?

Inevitably, confronting global warming will catalyze a dramatic transformation in the way the US generates and uses energy. The nation will build cleaner cars, produce more power from clean energy technologies like wind and solar, pursue greater energy efficiency, and unleash technological innovation. Together, these changes are likely to create millions of new jobs.

Retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency could alone create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing of insulation materials and installation. Energy efficiency will go a long way to cutting pollution.

According to the Energy Department, buildings and the appliances inside them account for almost 40 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted in the U.S. Smarter building can save huge amounts of energy. For example, California has reduced energy consumption in new houses and commercial buildings by 75 percent. Manufacturing and installing energy efficient doors, windows, and insulation will create many jobs in glass and hardware manufacturing.

Will the search for jobs in the U.S. and the growth of clean energy jobs in China impact the Copenhagen negotiations?

Jobs will undoubtedly be a hot topic at Copenhagen. Smart negotiators intent on forging a deal will surely bring evidence to the table that a global climate change deal will be good for jobs throughout the world.

I would bet on President Obama providing convincing statistics that a legally-binding climate change treaty will help to reduce unemployment in the U.S., when he is scheduled to address the summit on December 18th.

Frankly, the climate change negotiations are meaningless from an environmental perspective without the participation of China and the developing world. The GHG emissions trajectories of the United States and the OECD countries are essentially flat through 2050. Even if the OECD emissions were reduced to zero, global climate goals could not be met if developing world emissions continue to rise unchecked.

However, this scenario will not play out due to the self interests of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and the rest of the developing world. In many cases, these countries are taking positive action that is ignored or unreported in the United States. The fact that China, and other emerging economies are willing to step forward in Copenhagen with public commitments will change the domestic debate.

Those afraid that U.S. workers and entrepreneurs can’t compete in a global market have used the climate change issue as an excuse to take a protectionist posture that will ultimately become self-fulfilling if followed. The United States needs to be a full partner with the global community in tackling the climate challenge. Our global competitiveness depends on it.

The United States, once a world leader in science, technology, and manufacturing, has dropped its guard. We outsourced our manufacturing and the jobs that go with it. Math and science programs in our schools have been diminished and we are losing to competitors in the global marketplace. A classic example is nuclear energy, a technology developed and used more widely in America than any other nation. Even today, we have the largest nuclear energy program with the best operating performance in the world. Many other nuclear energy facilities worldwide are based on U.S. technology. Like the exploration of space, nuclear energy development grew out of the scientific training provided in American schools and universities after World War II. However, we lost interest and turned our backs to nuclear development and yielded our global leadership role.

Today, 53 nuclear power plants are under construction around the world, but only one of these is in the United States. In addition, 137 plants on order or planned in 26 countries. These plants represent an economic engine that will generate high quality jobs during fabrication, construction and over 60 years of operation.

In the United States, the employment and economic benefits of a new nuclear plant include:

· 1,400 – 1,800 jobs during construction, with peak employment at 2,400 jobs

· Approximately 700 permanent jobs when the plant is operating:

· 700 additional jobs in the local area to provide the goods and services necessary to support the nuclear plant workforce

· $430 million a year in total output for the local community.

A typical nuclear power plant generates approximately $20 million per year in state and local taxes. These tax payments support schools, roads and other state and local infrastructure. Building new nuclear energy facilities in the numbers necessary to reduce carbon emissions depends on the development of our workforce and a robust supply chain of manufacturers. Construction of new nuclear plants requires a diverse workforce of skilled tradesmen, engineers and technicians as well as hundreds of components and subcomponents. Importantly, the industry already is working with the nation’s universities, community college, trade schools and labor unions to train thousands of new workers that will be needed in the next few years. Additionally, our domestic manufacturing base is retooling to be ready to build nuclear and other clean energy sources that will be necessary to meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals.

The NuclearEnergy Institute, in a 2006 analysis, confirmed that key components for construction of the first four to eight new nuclear plants are available in the marketplace today. However, a more aggressive construction rate contemplated in the Waxman-Markey bill would challenge the supply chain. Of the hundreds of components that are used to build a nuclear power plant, only two cannot currently be produced in the United States. Expansion of nuclear energy clearly represents a major opportunity for American manufacturers to expand capacity to meet the needs of the growing world nuclear power market.

In policies coming out of Copenhagen and subsequent international climate meetings that will shape the trajectory of clean energy job growth in the United States. By nature, clean energy technology like nuclear energy produces high quality jobs. However, absent clear, consistent and enduring clean energy support at the international and domestic level, the clean energy economy and the jobs required to sustain it will not be achieved. If we collectively meet this challenge, our children and grandchildren will inherit a cleaner world full of promise —largely due to the economic growth driven by infrastructure development.

On the Web: http://www.nei.org/keyissues/protectingtheenvironment/climate-change-initiatives---new/to-copenhagen/

Many in the US believe that the Markey - Waxman climate change bill is just about increasing the cost of energy. Most fail to see the benefits and profits that it brings to industry, how it can help expand our exports and, most importantly, the many jobs it can create. This has to change. It is critical that the US public realizes how the climate change bill can benefit our economy. Its 'cap and trade' legislation is a version of the carbon market of the Kyoto Protocol that became international law in 2005. Each of the US$125 billion traded in the carbon market per year represents a payment made by someone who overemits and is received by someone who underemits. For each dollar paid, a dollar is received leading to commercial gains and profits. The overemitters pay and the underemitters benefit, exactly as one would like things to be to provide incentives towards a safer atmosphere. But the carbon market's net cost to the economy is zero. And in addition it creates positive incentives for averting climate change, for clean technology jobs, clean goods and services, and clean exports.

The energy industry and large segments of the business community understand that there are significant gains to be made from the carbon markets. They want clear guidelines, they need such guidelines to succeed. A recent discussion in London with senior executives of EON, the EU's largest carbon emitter, confirms that the carbon market's guidelines are important for them and viewed as helping their business strategies into the future. EON supports the Kyoto Protocol's carbon market for this reason - it is an integral part of a successful business strategy. The same is true for our US automobile industry who sells globally - all major industries sell globally today -- and it is handicapped today without the guidelines created by the carbon market, since US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The Markey Waxman bill will correct this.

The carbon market changes the prices of all goods and services in the world economy because it helps make clean energy cheaper and fossil energy more costly and undesirable - for the first time. Everything we produce -- cars and trucks, homes, electricity, food, machinery, heating services -- everything uses energy. A change in the price for clean energy is a major signal that US industry needs and does not yet have. Since US car makers do not have an equivalent legislation at present, and will not have one until the Markey - Waxman Bill becomes law, they lack the guidelines they need for the cars they sell globally. US cars are less desirable overseas as they burn more gas than the global consumer wants. This created a major disruption in the US automobile industry - which is the heart of America - and led to painfully high levels of unemployment that could have been avoided.

With the right market price signals, we can turn the energy industry and business as a whole into friends of the environment.

Clean technology is where the US excels. We can be world leaders in innovation and commercialization, because we have the risk capital and the intellectual property rights needed for innovation like nobody else in the world. China cannot compete with us here. But we are handicapping our economy and our own innovation capability by failing to provide appropriate carbon market guidelines to our economy. The Markey - Waxman climate change bill and its 'cap and trade' system can help achieve the incentives and guideliness needed for clean innovation and commercialization, to compete globally and lead a clean tech industry that is a major source of US exports and new jobs at home.

A success in Copenhagen - in particular bringing China to the table on emissions reductions - can change the domestic debate in the US. It is crucial to achieve a positive vote of the 2009 Markey - Waxman Energy Bill when it goes to the Senate. To pass this bill through Senate, one needs a simple and truthful response to the sound - bite "Why are we limiting our emissions if China does not"? This sound-bite is right. China and the US are the world's two largest carbon emitters, and without serious cuts from both the world cannot avert climate change risks. To address the threat of climate change and simultaneously to address domestic concerns about the economic consequences to the US -- requires China's commitment to reduce its emissions.

Recently China offered to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy. But this offer reflects increases in energy efficiency that China has been achieving over the last 12 years -- a period in which Chinese carbon emissions have nearly doubled.

Recently President Obama offered a 17% cut in emissions -- an auspicious beginning for the climate summit that needs US leadership. But our 17% uses as base year 2005, while the rest of the world uses 1990. Comparing apples to apples, therefore, the US offer is a mere 3% reduction with respect to EU's offer of 20% cuts and Japan's offer of 25% cuts. Our offer is too small.

What we really need is a systematic and serious approach to reduce emissions in China and the US as part of an ongoing process. While the new developments from the US are important, we need more that gestures of good will that arise when a major international event exposes the problem to the global community and the television screens broadcast our actions to the world.


A Proposal To Achieve Chinese Emissions Cuts

A modest extension of international law can achieve a systematic reduction of emissions in China, and has already been found acceptable in the United Nations context, by Chinese officials, by law makers within the US, and has been recently discussed at the White House. It is an update of the 1992 Climate Convention that the US has signed and ratified in 1992.

How does my proposal work?

The US can purchase a right, without the obligation, to buy emission cuts from China while China can simultaneously purchase a right, without the obligation, to sell these rights to the US at a minimum appropriate value. These two transactions can be structured so they require little or no exchange of money -- thus overcoming concerns from the Congressional Budgetary Committee. This financial mechanism gives us the right to force emissions reductions on China, while China can say truthfully that it will be appropriately compensated when this happens. This one - two punch can facilitate a Senate's vote in favor of the Markey - Waxman Energy Bill, since it overcomes the sound bite about China's emissions. This both China and the US will reduce their emissions, and the world's two largest emitters become part of a world community that needs their help to avert a potentially catastrophic risk of climate change.

The proposal just described is a modest extension of the carbon market that I designed and drafted into the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and is now trading US$125 bn per year at the European Union Trading System. The same carbon market approach has been adopted by the Waxman - Markey climate change bill, where it is called "cap and trade". The proposal advanced here is therefore in tune with US legislation and with a market - based approach.

The proposal described above can be extended to other developing nations as voluntary participants. At present China and the developing nations are not part of the carbon market, since Article 4 of the 1992 Climate Convention exempts China and the developing nations from mandatory emission limits without compensation. But the procedure I proposed overcomes this difficulty, as it does not require emissions limits for its implmentation: the limits arise as part of the financial mechanism itself. The Secretariat of the UNFCCC Convention views this proposal as an interpretation of existing law, a positive sign that can ease its adoption in Copenhagen.

This proposal serves the interests of the global community and of the US citizen; it is a win - win solution for the world as a whole. I hope it will have the support of Representative Edward Markey, D-Mass, the co-sponsor of the excellent House climate change bill. We want the Markey-Waxman bill to become law, and the proposal presented here will definitely help in this direction.

As the Copenhagen climate talks kicked off today, the starting gun was fired in the global race for the clean energy economy. And it’s clear that many other countries, notably China, are in much better shape to compete than the US.

Over the past decade, as much of the rest of the world began the transition to a clean energy economy, the US has remained largely on the sidelines, due, to a great extent, to the perception that China was not acting. If the US acts and China doesn’t, the argument went, we will put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage.

However, exactly the opposite has proven true. While US policymakers complained of inaction by China, the government in Beijing was investing heavily in clean energy technology and implementing some of the world’s most aggressive energy efficiency standards. As a result, China is far better positioned than the US to reap the rewards – measured in economic growth and job creation – of the clean energy economy.

When you look across China, you see wind turbines and solar arrays under construction, factories pumping out clean energy products, and an economy-wide effort to greatly improve energy efficiency. Because of China’s breakneck greening, they are rapidly becoming a global supplier of clean energy technology. That means that a wind farm project in South America, for example, will likely create jobs in China.

As policymakers in the US recognize this changing dynamic, they will increasingly recognize that our economic future requires policies at both the domestic and international levels that will create the foundation for an American clean energy economy. The House of Representatives, under the leadership of Chairmen Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, got the ball rolling with passage of the Waxman-Markey bill in June. That legislation would not only address dangerous climate change, it would also enable the US to meaningfully compete in the clean energy race.

Now, as the world meets in Copenhagen to negotiate a global climate agreement, all eyes are on the Senate, where passage of a strong climate and energy bill in early 2010 is vital to ensuring a global agreement and the US transition to a clean energy economy. When President Obama comes to Copenhagen next week, the world will be listening intently for assurances that the United States will live up to its promises by making climate change the next legislative priority immediately following healthcare.

The President and Majority Leader Reid hold the key to determining whether the US joins the race or remains on the sidelines as China and others continue to pass us by.

1) One of the key focal points of the international climate policy debate has been the need to define the role of developing countries, particularly the major developing country economies, e.g., China, India, Brazil. It has been one of the major issues in the international negotiations since the original UNFCCC signing in 1992, and it has been one of the most, if not the most, significant concerns raised in the domestic U.S. climate policy political debate.

The Obama Administration has, in its first year, invested heavily in its bilateral discussions with China and India to break through on the "no binding commitments for developing countries" dialogue. These efforts appear to be having some success as China and India have now announced their willingness to support varying commitments. These commitments are important from an environmental perspective and helpful in terms of leadership of the G-77 bloc of developing countries. However, the breadth and depth of these commitments and the willingness to support them with reasonable monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements remain critical issues and potential stumbling blocks for the Copenhagen negotiations.

2) The "search for jobs" in the U.S., China, and elsewhere, is one of the major dynamics of the Copenhgagen negotiations. The environmental reason for the discussions is to find a common global approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in an economically effective manner. But the fundamental positioning by each party to the negotiations is guided by their own enlightened economic interest.

It is important that Chinese leaders are now willing to slow their greenhouse gas emissions under an international agreement. This should remove one of the barriers to agreement in the U.S. Congress on critical climate legislation that is in our self-interest. But if American workers are to compete successfully for global clean energy jobs and boost the economy, more effort is needed to focus infrastructure policy and investments, training, and institutional capacity development for transportation, water, and the electric grid on effective performance.

As the Copenhagen meeting begins, it’s worth looking at this question in the context of transportation, which accounts for 23 percent of global energy related CO2 emissions. A Climate Change Express train sponsored by the International Railway Federation just pulled into the Copenhagen station yesterday morning from Brussels, filled with delegates, observers, business leaders, and journalists covering the story about how transportation needs to be part of the climate solution.

I recently was in China, where transportation policy reforms are accelerating. Although non-motorized transportation was dominant 25 years ago, years of heavy road investment, rising incomes, and the banning of bicycles from major roads in many cities caused explosive growth in motor traffic, congestion, and pollution. China has become a net energy importer. This year it surpassed America in new motor vehicle sales.

Facing those trends, there is now a new emphasis on investment in bus rapid transit (BRT), rail, and improved walking and cycling facilities. In Beijing, for example, improved public transportation, smart traffic management, and restrictions on automobile use boosted the share of all trips by public transportation from 30% in 2005 to 37% today, after years of decline. A new world-class BRT system rivaling Bogota’s will open in Guangzhou early next year, integrated with that city’s metro system and accompanied by high quality cycleways, walkways, and urban design initiatives. That’s creating a lot of jobs.

These reforms are occurring because many Chinese authorities see them as vital to spur the economy, cut dependence on foreign oil, and address the challenges of traffic congestion, air pollution, and climate change. America faces the same challenges in a different context. America should join China in advancing sustainable low-carbon transportation to create jobs and build a resilient 21st century economy.

In both America and China, infrastructure and motor vehicle manufacturing are seen as keys to economic recovery and job creation, with too much emphasis on the quantity of spending and too little effort to target spending in the most productive manner. For example, the American Economic Recovery and Renewal Act (ARRA) of 2009 dedicated about a quarter of its spending to infrastructure. But because it relied on existing programs and focused on shovel-ready projects, it did little to focus new transportation investment in areas where it would create the most jobs or where the new jobs are most needed.

Significant reforms are needed in America’s transportation investment framework to ensure that funding promotes better system performance, supporting efficient mobility, lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduced air pollution, better public health and safety, and equitable economic development. Metropolitan areas should be empowered to use new approaches to manage transportation, including congestion pricing, transit and freight investment, and stronger incentives for sustainable development patterns. None of these approaches are well enabled under America’s current laws and structures.

A growing number of American communities are innovating with transit to create improved travel choices that boost jobs and cut greenhouse emissions, as the Environmental Defense Fund documented in a recent Reinventing Transit report.

But the economic downturn has undercut these efforts, as transit agencies across the country have cut services and raised fares. The Chicago Transit Authority used stimulus money to order 58 new hybrid buses from New Flyer and placed an order for 140 buses, which it planned to pay for with state money. But state budget cuts forced CTA to delay the large order. This so disrupted New Flyer’s production schedule that, in August 2009, the company began laying off 320 people, 13 percent of its workers.

More stable long-term investment in public transportation could do much to spur job growth. A new study by the Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness at Duke University discusses how the lack of these conditions puts at risk the 25,000 to 33,000 jobs in the bus manufacturing industry in the U.S., as well as the promise of developing a green U.S. bus industry. The value chain of the bus manufacturing industry involves a considerable number of small and large manufacturers in nearly every state in the eastern United States, including Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and other hard-hit industrial states. These encompass makers of components from engines and transmissions, to windows, lighting, seating and flooring, and aftermarket products.

Bus transit is growing most quickly in the Asia/Pacific region, especially China, which is the world’s largest producer and consumer of buses. Global demand for transit buses is expected to rise by almost 6 percent a year through 2017 according to a recent industry survey. Allison Transmission has sold some 14,000 transmissions for transit buses throughout the world, most of them in China. Cummins, Firestone Industrial Products, and other American Bus suppliers are actively selling into the Chinese bus market.

But more work is needed to secure a global climate agreement and to reform 20th century transportation policies that are driven by politics, not performance. If America is to compete, we must learn again how to focus for performance and innovation, and find our way out of the current bitter political quagmire that impedes progress.

Congressman Markey, you hit the nail on the head. The great unifier in Copenhagen will be our collective need to create more jobs while reducing pollution. And with a President who understands that the path toward economic recovery and climate recovery are both built on the same clean energy foundation, the chance for advancing an international agreement have never been better.

Despite what some in Congress say, a clean energy economy is a competitiveness issue. The sad truth is that the U.S. is far behind Germany, Japan and China in creating new clean energy jobs and we have a lot to do to catch up. China has set out to be the world’s leading clean energy economy while the US is still arguing about the definition of a “green collar job.” It’s time for us to develop a clear and aggressive approach to deploy and manufacture those technologies that reduce pollution, like solar, and unleash the incredible energy of U.S.
ingenuity and entrepreneurialism.

As we head to Copenhagen this week it is clear to all industries that we will eventually have a price on carbon; a market force that will create huge economic growth for clean energy, especially for solar. Therefore it is critical that we put the policies in place TODAY that will ensure that the U.S. retains the jobs that will fuel this economic expansion of the future. Why should the U.S. take the lead? Because this growth will create high quality, good paying jobs that not only provide a paycheck, but also create a new sense of pride in those communities that have seen the disappearance of the 20th century industries. But if the U.S. does not create incentives to keep these jobs here in the U.S. we run the risk of seeing these new industries set up their manufacturing and research centers overseas.

One need only to look to Toledo Ohio to see the jobs potential of solar.
Toledo has successfully transitioned from a city based on glass manufacturing to one of the leading manufacturing centers for solar electric panels. Today, the solar industry employs over 6,000 people in Toledo alone. The coal industry only employs 3,000 people in the entire state of Ohio. By investing in our clean energy manufacturing sector, we will replicate this story throughout the U.S., especially in those states hardest hit by the downturn in manufacturing in the U.S. Other energy sectors, like coal, are in decline while our industry is ascending and the potential is virtually limitless. It’s time for us to let go of our 19th and 20th century energy technologies and support the industries that solve our 21st century problems.

Even though the U.S. House has passed legislation that will encourage the use of solar, like the Waxman-Markey bill, the solar industry still faces fundamental barriers to creating jobs and fighting pollution.
We’re simply not doing enough.

So how do we accelerate America’s move to the forefront of the global clean energy economy and the lead in stopping the pollution that is causing global warming? By giving the solar industry the freedom to compete on a level playing field with fossil fuels in the new economy.
And by giving consumers the liberty to choose the energy source they want to use and fight global warming from the comfort of their own homes.

To achieve this, the solar industry declared the Solar Bill of Rights in October at the Solar Power International 2009 conference. These eight rights, which you can read more about at www.solarbillofrights.com, are essential to putting solar on equal footing with the fossil fuel industries. We are not asking for anything more than the ability to access the electricity market place and be allowed to compete with other technologies in an open and free market. Nothing is more American than free markets and open competition, yet these principles do not exist in the monopoly controlled electricity markets. And until these rights are provided, the great jobs engine of solar energy will be stuck in park.

The solar industry is able to do what fossil fuels can’t. With or without an agreement in Copenhagen, the solar industry is ready now to create jobs and combat climate change.

Bottom line: regardless of the outcome of the talks in Copenhagen – and we are encouraged by President Obama’s decision to attend – it’s clear that solar is ready now to do more and do it quickly when it comes to addressing our climate and economic challenges. We hope that the emergence of China on the scene at Copenhagen will push legislators who haven’t had your foresight, Congressman Markey, to work for the right policies to drive America ahead of China and Europe in the new clean energy economy.

The importance of China to future levels of global CO2 emissions cannot be understated. But the issue is more far reaching than competition for clean energy jobs and to only look at it through such a lens is to, perhaps, misread the situation. A more compelling story arises as we look at actual carbon emissions and the need to reduce them. This doesn't necessarily happen simply by growing existing clean energy industries.

The world sits on the doorstep of a long term rise in global temperatures that is now recognized as undesirable. There are many ways to assess this, but one which is particularly compelling is to think of our atmosphere as a glass half full… half full of carbon that is. A recent publication in the science journal, Nature, argues that less than half a trillion tons of carbon sit between us and a world in which that glass is overflowing and the issue of rising temperature has got away from us. It was empty back in 1750, it now contains some 540 billion tons and, if we continue as is, by some day in the early 2040's we will breach the top. Even if we slow down a bit by using energy more efficiently now, we just delay the inevitable.

Today in China there are some 500 big coal-fired power stations either recently built, under construction or planned for construction. This is on top of the existing stock and is more than all the coal-fired power generation capacity in the USA today. According to the International Energy Agency there will be another 50% added to these by 2030. But starting with these 500 power stations, if they operate as expected for several decades they will release some 50 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere (183 billion tons of CO2), or about 11% of the remaining carbon budget. That is 11% gone before anybody else even gets started, including the United States and the rest of the Chinese economy. In China's case, this situation will not be turned around until technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) arrive, driven by a price on carbon.

Although the recent Chinese announcement will begin to steer the economy in a new direction and will almost certainly result in less coal-fired power stations by 2030 than currently envisaged, it will probably be done without a price on emitting carbon. Rather, it is likely to be met through a relentless push on energy efficiency and increased use of wind, solar, bio and nuclear power through central energy planning. With their tremendous growth in GDP continuing, emissions will rise even whilst CO2 per GDP falls. Emissions won't begin to decline in absolute terms in China until a price for carbon is introduced into the economy, something unlikely to happen in the medium term. But between now and 2050, emissions in China will have to fall.

The next generation of low carbon technologies will require a price on emitting carbon to drive deployment; this is where the USA can take the lead over the coming decade. The cap-and-trade system now under consideration in the Senate will position the U.S. economy to begin deployment of CCS, hasten the shift to advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol and potentially introduce hydrogen-based energy technologies into the economy. These types of low carbon technologies will be needed by the world to meet the difficult global targets being considered in Copenhagen. With China now aggressively pursuing a more energy efficient path forward, the USA is best positioned to respond through a carbon market approach. This is where the global game will really be played in 2020 and beyond.

In the last several years since China surpassed the United States to become the world’s number one emitter of carbon dioxide, it has become fashionable to point a finger at China for building a new coal-fired power plant every week. There’s no question that new coal is a problem. But as Congressman Markey notes, China is doing far more to green its economy than most give it credit for. And if the United States does not wake up to that reality and get fully on board the green economy train, it will lose market share, job creation potential, and a ride into the 21st century energy economy.

Rather than focus on China’s official pronouncements, look at what the country is doing. Today many U.S.-made cars are banned for sale in China because they are too inefficient to meet China’s stricter fuel economy standards. Some 27 million Chinese homes have rooftop solar water heaters. China leads the world in production of solar photovoltaics that can convert sunlight directly in electricity. Most of those solar panels are sold internationally. China supplied a quarter of U.S. solar panel imports in 2007; since then the share has likely climbed, representing manufacturing jobs being created in China rather than in the United States.

With the production of electricity from the wind, China is set to blow by the United States within the next year or so. China’s Wind Base program is creating 6 massive complexes of over 10,000 megawatts each, which together would double the country’s 2008 wind power capacity. Chinese officials who have been bullish on wind energy supplying a growing share of China’s power were bolstered by a report by Chinese and U.S. scientists published this year in the journal Science, which revealed that the country’s wind potential was seven times larger than its current total electricity consumption. Chinese manufacturers are gearing up to meet the new demand at home and abroad. Last month’s announcement that a new wind project in Texas, which would be partially financed with U.S. stimulus package funds, planned to import Chinese-made turbines provided a glimpse of how the scenario could play out if the U.S. does not do more to foster its domestic renewable energy industries.

That China has a vested interest in renewable energy for economic reasons is clear. But China also has high stakes in preserving a stable climate for a more fundamental reason: food security. Global warming poses a major threat to China’s food supplies. And food security is an incredibly sensitive issue in China since nearly all high-level government officials are themselves survivors of the 1959-61 famine when 30 million Chinese people starved to death.

Agriculture’s 11,000-year existence has been a time of remarkable climate stability. With higher temperatures, droughts can become more prevalent, crop yields suffer, and glacier-fed rivers could periodically run dry. A report last week from China’s Meteorological Administration noted that higher temperatures would shrink yields of food staples like rice and wheat. Already we are seeing faster melting of the mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau that feed Asia’s major rivers during the dry season. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has noted that with future warming two-thirds of China’s glaciers could disappear by mid-century. Earth Policy Institute president Lester Brown warns that because China is the world’s leading producer of both wheat and rice, “the vanishing of mountain glaciers in Asia represents the biggest threat to the world food supply that we have ever seen.”

While this may seem far removed from the concerns in the U.S. Congress, with China now our banker, holding some $800 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, the United States can’t very well withhold food exports. Were China to turn to the world market for substantial grain imports, food prices everywhere would rise, driving hunger up even further.

The economic incentives for leading rather than lagging in renewable energy and efficiency are compelling enough, but food security is the trump card for why no country can ignore the urgency of stabilizing climate.

China’s new climate change policy rests on the proposition it should create, not reduce jobs. The strategy is to increases energy efficiency. The International Energy Agency reckons China could halve emissions by replacing old coal burners with state-of-the-art power generators. Each power station would emit less gas on average in future, yet total emissions will still climb steadily, and surpass the US, because China will continue to expand power production.

China’s leading economic reform agency, the National Reform and Development Commission, has indicated it will only consider reducing emissions by hiking energy costs, as in Europe’s emissions trading scheme and the Waxman-Markey Bill, after it has secured job-sustaining, economic growth. By its own calculation, that might take another 20 years.

With record unemployment, the immediate need for jobs in the US today is greater than in China. China’s demand for modern technology for power production offers the Administration a ready-made, job-creating strategy which also reduces emissions; by supporting manufacture in the US of the efficient coal and nuclear power generators China needs.

This is a surer bet than relying on “green” job creation strategies to support technologies, like wind power, which are not commercially viable, drain government revenue and don’t promise permanent jobs. The reason is that the competitiveness of US exporters is on the rise.

The year before the sub-prime crisis erupted, the National Association of Manufacturers reported exports of US manufactures had started to accelerate. This was the upside of the steady slide in the dollar. More importantly it is a long term trend. The dollar will stay low as long the US is a major debtor economy; perhaps for two decades more.

To export of low emission conventional power plants to China or the rest of the world, the US power plant industry does not need subsidized jobs, just low domestic costs, such as energy.

Like China, the Administration It should put greenhouse gas abatement strategy on a long, slow track. This is the reality - there is no short term fix. This would protect and expand US jobs, and make a constructive contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in China.