Doubling Down on the Market-Based Transformation

This week we all woke up to a new and different political reality for the United States and the world. While world leaders have made a resounding call to address climate change and meet the 2 Celsius degree target established by the global Conference of the Parties last year in Paris (COP21), the U.S. election results provide uncertainty about how our nation will meet those goals.

However, as an organization, we have always believed that in due course the economics of our solutions—efficiency and renewables—will overcome the old way of powering our economies. For more than three decades, we have worked to advance the market-based transformation of our energy system, with some amazing results. We have seen Fortune 500 companies invest in renewables, large building portfolios execute deep energy retrofits, and car companies make lighter and more fuel-efficient cars, all because it makes economic sense. Our work has endured through decades of various administrations not only because it’s the right thing to do environmentally, but also because it’s the right thing to do economically.

A new administration will have new policy priorities. However, a new administration does not rewrite the laws of atmospheric chemistry. The urgency of our mission, and the global commitment made in Paris to accelerate the transition to a clean, prosperous, and secure low carbon future, still provide us with a hugely challenging work program.

I hope that you will join together, with me and our entire team, in the conviction that, as we continue our work to address the planetary crisis we face, we will be motivated more than ever to get it right and that our efforts will be timely to meet the urgent issues we are addressing.

Image courtesy of iStock.