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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, today told lawmakers that a realistic approach that recognizes the results of domestic, bilateral and multilateral activities and gives the business community the opportunity to innovate will be needed to reach a global climate deal.
Harbert testified at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing exploring the international aspects of global climate change. Her testimony was largely based on the findings of a new report the Institute released last week titled “The Prospects for Copenhagen: More Realism Can Smooth the Way.” The report is available at the Institute’s website, www.energyxxi.org
“Trying to get over 190 countries to agree on a new treaty would be tough even in the best of economic circumstances, and these are not the best of economic circumstances,” Harbert said. “Unrealistic expectations and demands about technology readiness and adoption, short-term goals, burden sharing, wealth transfers, and intellectual property have led to finger-pointing, not progress,” she said.
Harbert drew on the lessons of 1997’s Kyoto Protocol, in which the U.S. failed to ratify an international climate agreement after agreeing to targets. She said that this time, a “bottom-up” approach that incorporates sufficient flexibility to permit new ideas to be introduced as they emerge would be the best way forward.
“We need more cooperation and less confrontation. It’s time we moved beyond rhetoric and started looking at practical solutions,” said Harbert. “An agreement focusing on technology offers a path forward that developed and developing countries and the business community can embrace.”
Harbert told the committee that how rapidly advanced energy technologies are developed and adopted commercially will be the most important factor in determining how quickly and at what cost greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced. An accelerated program to improve the performance and lower the costs of advanced alternate energy technologies, she noted, could broaden the range of economically and politically viable policy options available to decision makers.