RMI25 RMIQ Lecture

Moderator:
    Thomas Friedman, Columnist, The New York Times

Panelists:
   Majora Carter, Founder, Sustainable South Bronx
   Ashraf Ghani, Chairman, Institute for State Effectiveness
   Amory Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, RMI
   George E. Pataki, Founder and Chairman, Pataki-Cahill Group
   Jonathan F.P. Rose, President, Jonathan Rose Companies

Date: August 9, 2007

Location: Aspen, Colorado

Description:
This RMIQ, RMI's Quest for Solutions, is titled "A Convenient Truth: Profitable Business-Led Climate Solutions." The panel focuses on the premise that climate protection is an excellent business opportunity. Examples show that climate protection is profitable, not costly; that a growing constellation of companies are saving energy far faster than would be needed to stabilize climate if the whole world did the same; and large and small communities can make a difference.

Running Time: 55 minutes

The weekend began with an RMIQ lecture (RMI's Quest for Solutions lecture series) on the night of Thursday, August 10. It focused on profitable solutions to climate change. And there was one question — posited midway through Thursday night's discussion — that framed the discussion.

It was posed by New York Times columnist, author, and RMI25 emcee Tom Friedman (www.thomaslfriedman.com). It went like this: "If the economic logic of Amory Lovins and RMI is so clear, and if the national security/strengthening America logic is so obvious, why, even in this election cycle, don't we not hear, in the Republican debate and the Democrat debate, people talking with the same conviction you just did, Amory did, and Bill Clinton did, why is [smart energy use and energy efficiency] not happening?...[and later] why doesn't this compute?"

Clearly, the world's computer is busted.

Energy efficiency and addressing climate change is a worldwide, every-sector challenge. The panelists, with their incredibly diverse backgrounds, quickly got into some pretty sad stories about how energy efficiency and climate-related challenges in each of their worlds — from villages in Afghanistan to the political halls of power in New York — were tackled. (Luckily, some inspiring solutions were also described.)

The conversation began in the political arena.

Tom asked what Amory what he'd do if the new President [2008] called and asked Amory, "I'm going to give my first speech on energy. What should I say?"

Amory spoke of allowing technologies and fuels to compete fairly, and how government policies should let people respond to price at all levels. He described feebates (See: Feebate Forum: Reading Material), and explained that the main task in public policy is barrier-busting.

"Energy has too long been simply a set of lobbyists' agendas rather than [the pursuit of] the public interest," Amory said. "And for all the reasons the President just laid out, it is at the core of everything we need to do. It won't solve all our problems to get energy right, but it'll solve a lot of them."

Later, former New York Governor George Pataki said the energy discussion isn't happening in politics but it's happening with the American people. "Today we will send about a billion dollars overseas for oil," George said. "At the end of the day we burn the oil, we pollute the air, and the only obligation we have is to spend another billion dollars tomorrow, to do it again. Imagine if we were investing that billion dollars a day, here in the United States, what we could do." He described RGGI (www.rggi.org) and how certain initiatives being driven by the states, not the federal government, were the important initiatives. (He also described a New York state stipulation that gas stations were required to sell oil companies' products as part of their leases. His government promptly rewrote that law so they could sell biodiesel and other alternative fuels — problem solved.)

Ashraf Ghani, who has worked in a wide variety of government and development roles in Afghanistan, alluded to the possible solutions in education by noting that 60 percent of Russia's education budget goes to heating classrooms.

The panel also delved into the realm of environmental justice.

Majora Carter, who is working to stimulate the green economy in the South Bronx (www.ssbx.org) and who is a tireless fighter for environmental justice, described the need to "…recognize that when we help environmental justice communities we're helping larger green issues." She expressed frustration that polar bears get more interest than poor communities with environmental issues.

"The logic is so clear," Tom added. "The political logic. The economic logic. The logic of bringing people out of poverty. What is standing in the way? I haven't got a good answer. The President talked about breaking down barriers. What's standing in the way? Because if the logic is this clear, either the logic is wrong or something very big is standing in the way."

Majora responded by saying that this new green economy needs to be inclusive. Pull people together, she suggested.

But it was in the arena of green building where much of the talk centered. That's no surprise as in his speech before the panel session President Clinton spoke at length about the Clinton Foundation's Climate Initiative (www.clintonfoundation.org) and its work with forty large cities to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions (RMI is a consultant on that project). Cities contribute about 75 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions despite taking up only 2 percent of the earth's surface.

Green developer Jonathan Rose (www.rose-network.com) described how in the Third World the green revolution is creating great change where it's implemented. But he lamented that it's not happening here. He spoke of the need to "densify" and green cities, where more than half the world's population lives. "We need to make a bargain with market," he said, so that cities compete with suburbs. Or, he suggested, do what Germany does: establish boundaries with human environments on one side, wilderness on the other. "What we really need is holistic planning," he said.

Ashraf, currently Chancellor of Kabul University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabul_University) and Chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness (www.effectivestates.org), spoke of the green movement in Afghanistan, and described the sorry state of design education.

"Curriculums are totally directed toward mathematical abstract processes rather than design issues," he said. "Design has to fundamentally change in this country and the rest of the developed countries in order to bring efficiency [to the entire world]. Efficiency of design has disappeared. I couldn't get the World Bank or USAid to help me design a city in a different way. It's a total blank. It's a vacuum."

Amory explained one of the most basic problems the real-estate industry — split incentives. "Why should you fix up your office or your apartment [so it's energy efficient] if you don't own it and why should your landlord do it if you pay the utilities?" he asked.

Good question.

The evening ended on a high note, a suggestion of solutions, which is why we all go to these things (and why RMI exists).

Asked if one could afford to do a green office building in, say, the South Bronx, Jonathan Rose smiled and said: "Absolutely, if you know what you're doing. There's a lot of national data that show that the greening of buildings costs between 1 and 5, maybe 7 percent maximum to green them…. I do a lot of work in affordable housing in which we green affordable housing for 0 to 1 percent because there's no more money. You don't get more money to build affordable housing just because you want to make it green. What is interesting is that cost is completely paid for by the energy savings, and you, as a new building owner, are going to get a mortgage, a 30-year mortgage. Anything that pays back in les than 29 years, you're actually making money on…the great thing is that not only will the energy savings pay for themselves easily with a 30-year mortgage, they'll also pay for healthy non-toxic materials, daylighting, fresh air, etc. All this leads to worker productivity, makes people happier, and leads to lower worker turnover — economically, it completely works."

Jonathan's not making this up. A week after the RMI25 celebration, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD, www.wbcsd.org) released a report showing green building is a lot cheaper than perceived, titled: "Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Business Realities and Opportunities."

The lede says it all: "Survey finds green [building] costs overestimated by 300 percent."

Clearly, someone's not paying attention.

—Cam Burns, RMI

One of my favorite stories of the night was President Clinton's story about appearing before the Arkansas Public Utilities Commission with Amory, way back in January 1977. The then-Attorney General had enlisted Amory to help him convince the PUC that two planned nuclear power stations weren't necessary because of the potential for energy efficiency. Amory described negawatts and the uneconomic investment that is nuclear power. The PUC listened politely, but as Mr. Clinton noted, approved it anyway. President Clinton summed up Amory's efforts as losing a few battles, but, as an Aspen Daily News headline blared the next day, "winning the war." See: www.aspendailynews.com/archive_21085.

—Cam Burns, RMI