Secretary Chu, in a speech today at Cambridge University in England, said he wants to see more action on climate change and less talk, on curbing greenhouse emissions.
"The U.S. will move, inevitably it will move first, as a more developed country we should be moving first, and I hope China will follow," said Chu, a Nobel-Prize winning physicist who has signaled the alarm on global warming for many years. “If others, especially new no. 1 emitter China, are waiting for us to go first, they’ll get it.”
Secretary Chu believes energy efficiency is vital to reducing the world’s carbon footprint and said simple things like better insulation in home construction, painting roofs white, and more efficient appliances can make a major difference in reducing C02 emissions.
Steve Chu was Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory starting in August, 2004. Chu, was an early advocate for finding scientific solutions to climate change, and he guided Berkeley Lab on a new mission to become the world leader in alternative and renewable energy research; particularly the development of carbon-neutral sources of energy.
It’s been said, 'Dr. Chu understands the significance of our energy and environmental challenges, and more importantly, 
understands the technical solutions necessary to address them.’
A year and a half ago, when Barack Obama was just an Illinois senator and professor Chu had not the slightest inkling that he would be tapped to be the current President Obama’s energy secretary, he had this conversation (in part) on National Public Radio”
“A price on carbon is absolutely one of the — if I had to name six things, that would certainly be one of them. It's not the be-all, end-all; you need other things. There are certainly regulatory things, like [building] insulation, or higher fuel standards will also be needed — but certainly a price on carbon. Now here's the problem with the price on carbon ... right now, the stakeholders of various kinds — they want to minimize it, and they, most importantly, want loopholes.”
“In a price on carbon, whether it's a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system or it's a mixture, I more want to see, over a 10 to 15 year period, no loopholes, a steady increase. Give people some time to adjust, but say, 'There's no hiding.' In 15 years, we'll be at a certain point where it will actually make a difference.”
Today, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is in a unique position to make his own predictions come true.
Copyright Jean Williams 2009
Comments
The underlying premise of cap and trade--that CO2 drives global warming--is based on United Nations' climate reports that are tainted by politics and agenda. You don't have to be a scientist to realize the reports don't pass the smell test. See www.energyplanusa.com . America needs our own objective scientific assessment of global warming. I am a Democrat who for the past 20 years believed global warming was caused by CO2. Now after reading the UN reports I realize the fix was in and we were
I hope Obama and company push the standards higher - and stick to the plan. Too often politicians run the other way when they see the bottom line costs...corporate lobbyists seem to get involved and so on...
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