Lawmakers and business leaders need to rekindle a spirit of cooperation if the U.S. wants to lead in clean energy and address climate change, says Former President Bill Clinton.

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, President Clinton attempted to cut through the contentious political fights picked by the “denialists in Congress” and highlight the importance of cooperation in fostering smart, forward-thinking clean energy policy.

“The great winners of the world are the cooperators. Why is this important? Because cooperation gets lousy news coverage and people don’t know about it. We have to both think large and have a bias for action even if it’s small,” said Clinton.

He also encouraged the industry to continuing telling local stories of successful projects around the U.S., which he believes can diminish some of the political push-back against clean energy policy.

“If we want to do these projects, we need to make sure that more people know. Even in this highly partisan time we need to struggle for public-private cooperation. Even if the news in Washington might be disheartening because of the denialists in Congress. But across the rest of the country, the news isn’t so bad.”

Clinton outlined efficiency and renewable energy projects around the country, including the efficiency retrofit of the Empire State Building and the Ivahpah concentrating solar power project, which cumulatively created thousands of green jobs.

“Every place people do things the power of example changes consciousness,” said Clinton.

He pointed to all the construction workers he met in California working on building the 392-megawatt Ivanpah solar project — people of “all races” with some of the “best tattoos” he’d ever seen. Those construction workers are the people who are going to make the difference in moving the clean energy industry forward, said Clinton.

“Think about the tattoos. You win the tattoo vote, we’ll have the damnedest environmental policy you ever saw.”

When asked about the partisan politics stalling comprehensive climate and energy policy, Clinton said he believes that some of it will pass after November. “I think people will start thinking instead of just trying to tear the house down.”

In his final statement, Clinton encouraged people on the local level to continue working for a bipartisan consensus.

“Where ever you live, find something to do. Keep working until you find somebody of a different political persuasion with the same goal, and then figure out how to achieve it. So while you lobby for political change on the national level, it’s important to do something. Even if it seems small, it will have a big impact. Differences of opinion are important. If your purpose is to reach an agreement than your disagreements become much more valuable. We are going to have to become a stakeholder society again — that’s the only thing that works.”

Natural gas cannot be credited with the reductions in the US CO2 emissions observed in the last half-decade. Most reductions, nearly 90%, were caused by the decline in petroleum use, displacement of coal by mostly non-price factors, and its replacement by wind, hydro and other renewables. Where low price of natural gas saved some CO2 by displacing coal, it was quickly offset by its increased use in other sectors—highlighting the pitfall of justifying the current market for natural gas as a “bridge” or an interim phase of transition towards clean energy.

by Shakeb Afsah and Kendyl Salcito, via Co2 Scorecard

Between 2006 and 2011 the US cut its CO2 emissions by nearly half a billion metric tons—more than any other country in the world. This remarkable decline overlaps with the boom in shale gas production, triggered by the large-scale commercialization of fracking technology. The production of natural gas has since soared, and the price has tumbled. Suddenly natural gas has emerged as a more attractive fuel for electricity generation than coal.

This is a new trend. For decades coal was the favored fuel for electricity generation. Particularly after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the US government limited natural gas use in industries and power plants out of fear that we would exhaust our domestic reserves and be unprepared for the next crisis. This restriction on natural gas led to a steep rise in electricity generation from coal.

As oil crisis fears subsided, the market for natural gas revived, beginning when the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 wasrepealed in 1987. For the next two decades, domestic production of natural gas made limited gains in the energy market, but in 2006, the year shale gas began to flood the market (Exhibit-1), it set the stage for the price of natural gas to hit the floor. This boom in shale gas correlates with a national drop in CO2 emissions. Read more