When it comes to innovation, Americans don’t take a back seat to anyone – and we certainly won’t start now.  From wind power to nuclear reactors to high speed rail, China and other countries are moving aggressively to capture the lead.

Given that challenge, and given the enormous economic opportunities in clean energy, it’s time for America to do what we do best: innovate.  As President Obama has said, we should not, cannot, and will not play for second place.

That’s Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in speech Monday on how China’s bid for world leadership in clean energy should be our “Sputnik moment.”

Here is the PowerPoint presentation that goes with the speech, the source of the image above (h/t Ecocentric).  What follows is a video of the talk and an excerpted post by videographer extraordinaire Peter Sinclair on his Climate Crocks blog:
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Killed by the NY Times magazine.

The larger idea is to build a more sustainable economy, or what Chinese leaders have called a balanced and harmonious society. In that economy, families would not have to save 20 percent of their income in order to pay for schooling and medical care, as many do now. They would instead be able to afford more of the comforts of modern life “” better housing, clothing, transportation and communication. In time, China would become the world’s next great consumer society.

Maybe you thought that the word ‘sustainable’ was already dead, but really it was only ill — ill-defined by overuse.  But thanks to the NYT magazine and economics columnist David Leonhardt, it has now been officially defined out of existence.

Maybe you thought ‘sustainable’ meant something like “capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the environment.”  How wrong you were.  Apparently, to the Times, ‘sustainable’ means being the biggest consumers in the world.  George Orwell would be proud.

Special props to the NYT and Leonhardt for running a piece that uses the words sustainable, sustain, and sustainability six times — without once mentioning global warming or China’s unsustainable contribution to it  — on the day before the big international climate conference in Cancun, a day their op-ed page ran three pieces on global warming, including one explaining the dangers of our unsustainable path (see Farmer in the Times: “Climate change, I believe, may eventually pose an existential threat to my way of life”).

And extra bonus credit to the Times for this head-exploding cover:

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Leaked diplomatic cables provide new insight into the intersection of climate policy and international security. Many of these issues have been raised by the Center for American Progress, in its work to reduce the multitudinous risks associated with oil dependence.

CLIMATE POLICY

Cables note that leaders like Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy consider global warming to be an issue of top importance. As of November 2009, State Department officials were still confident about the passage of climate legislation by Congress, a cable from Ambassador to France Charles H. Rivkin to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reveals:

Even sophisticated observers are skeptical that long-term reduction goals legislated in the United States can be counted on as more than aspirations, especially if radical cuts are not imposed up front. We have reiterated that U.S. laws are reliably enforced by the Federal government and by U.S. courts, using the Clean Air Act as our example. Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials agree that legislation moving through Congress and the Administration’s proposals would establish a system comparable to the EU’s measures. These officials regard Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo’s public criticisms of Waxman-Markey as “insufficient on the medium term goal” as distracting attention from the need for China and India to reduce their rates of growth in GHG emissions.

In the ensuing months, the U.S. Senate killed any prospect for the passage of climate legislation, making concerns about the reliability of long-term targets a moot point. Industrial polluters have launched a broad campaign to dismantle the Clean Air Act, and a wave of global warming deniers swept into office, firmly opposed to any action to fight climate pollution whatsoever.

THE COSTS OF OIL

As the Wonk Room has previously discussed, the international price of oil has a major impact on the power of the Iranian regime. One cable describes a December 2008 meeting between Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart A. Levey and top Israeli officials, including Tzipi Livni, then the Foreign Minister and now the opposition leader:

Livni asked if the declining price of oil was becoming leverage in the efforts to thwart Iranian financial efforts. Levey said that it was and that the Iranian private sector was becoming more vocal in its criticisms of the government.

A Wonk Room analysis has found that a strong cap on carbon would significantly cut the flow of petrodollars to Iran’s hostile regime.

Center for American Progress experts have also raised concerns about the “risks from technology, natural disasters, and geopolitical turmoil” associated with the oil market. The United States directly imports oil from ten different dangerous or unstable countries. An October 2009 cable from Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle notes that the Russian government “benefits significantly” — on the order of $10 billion a year — from the “instability premium” in the world oil market due to Iran:

As the world’s largest exporter of oil and gas, Russia also benefits significantly from the “instability premium” embedded in world oil prices due to tensions with Iran. Even a USD 5 per barrel instability premium would net Russia almost USD 9 billion per year for oil and approximately USD 2-4 billion from its gas exports. Finally, given Iran’s position as the second largest owner of gas reserves, Russia’s gas sector clearly benefits from the lack of international investment in the development of Iran’s natural gas sector.

SAUDI ARABIA

Center for American Progress writers have previously noted Saudi Arabia’s intransigence on climate policy and its limited efforts to liberalize its society. In a February 2010 cable preparing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her visit to the Arab petrostate, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Smith describes how the nation is shifting its policy, including its increased engagement with China:

Guided by a vision that dovetails with some key elements of the President’s Cairo speech, King Abdullah has begun to implement an ambitious plan to transform Saudi Arabia’s economy away from excessive reliance on hydrocarbons and towards a knowledge-based economy that can provide sustainable development for the long-term. Achieving these goals will require nothing short of a revolution in the education system and significant changes in most aspects of Saudi society, especially the status of women.

. . .

Saudi Arabia is thinking through how best to take a leaf from the Chinese playbook and use these expanded trade ties to achieve important political goals. In this regard, Saudi Arabia has told the Chinese that it is willing to effectively trade a guaranteed oil supply in return for Chinese pressure on Iran not to develop nuclear weapons.

. . .

Your visit offers an important opportunity to head off a serious clash over climate change. Saudi officials are very concerned that a climate change treaty would significantly reduce their income just as they face significant costs to diversify their economy. We want to get beyond the obstructionism that Saudi negotiators have often shown during the negotiations and persuade senior leaders to work with us in a partnership to meet their strategic concerns, including by cooperating on developing solar and biomass energy. The King is particularly sensitive to avoid Saudi Arabia being singled out as the bad actor, particularly on environmental issues. Your conveying the importance the President places on working as partners with Saudi Arabia on the Copenhagen process will be very important in making this dialogue more constructive. Secretary Chu intends to explore specific areas of collaboration during his February 21-23 visit.

Deaths from climate-related disasters more than double in 2010 – Oxfam

Climate-related disasters killed 21,000 people in the first nine months of this year, more than double the number in 2009, the humanitarian organization Oxfam reported on Monday.

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Another day, another baffling and/or pointless Washington Post climate article.

Today’s winner is “Turning down the world’s temperature: A job for a fake tree? A boat?“  It begins promisingly enough:

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The media has the story of UC Berkeley study on climate messaging exactly backwards, as I explained last week.  The study found the best message is also the most science-based:  Doing nothing risks “many devastating consequences” but “much of the technology we need already exists.”  We just need to deploy it already!

Brad Johnson made a similar point in his post, “Winning climate messages combine dire scientific threat with solutions for a just world.”  Now he reports on the predictably wrong take Fox News has on the study:

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