Following up on last week’s White House Jobs Summit, President Obama made a speech on Tuesday at the Brookings Institution outlining his plan to accelerate U.S. job creation and stimulate economic growth. He proposed initiatives aimed at helping small businesses access credit and hire workers; infrastructure investment in highways, transit, rail, aviation and water; and programs to create jobs through energy efficiency and clean energy investments.
“The Apollo Alliance applauds the president’s continued focus on creating jobs through investments in clean and efficient energy systems and improvements to the nation’s aging transportation infrastructure,” said Apollo Chairman Phil Angelides. Click here to read Angelides’ full statement.
The energy efficiency and clean energy proposals include a “cash for caulkers program,” modeled on the cash for clunkers program, which would offer consumers rebates for upgrading the energy efficiency of their homes. The president also proposed expanding several successful and over-subscribed clean energy programs that were created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These include a program for industrial energy efficiency and tax incentives for investments in domestic renewable energy manufacturing facilities.
Last week, to coincide with the White House Jobs Summit, Apollo released a clean energy investment plan that, if enacted, would create up to 1.2 million domestic jobs while increasing U.S. energy security and climate stability. The 5-point plan focused on several areas the president identified as part of his short-term job growth plan, including transportation infrastructure, energy efficiency and renewables, and domestic clean energy manufacturing. Click here to read Apollo’s 5-Point Plan for Boosting Clean Energy Job Growth.
The World is Watching for Climate Progress in Copenhagen
The long-awaited Copenhagen climate negotiations are officially underway. COP 15, as the gathering is called, is the largest climate change summit in world history.
There are hundreds of fascinating stories coming out of Copenhagen, being reported not only by journalists but also by clean energy, environmental and climate justice activists, among others. Below are some recent entries from blog posts by Apollo Alliance coalition members and allies.
Natural Resources Defense Council Copenhagen blog: Posted December 9 by JingJing Qian, NRDC Beijing Deputy Director: Engaging the Business World: Side Events by Indian and Chinese Institutions
“I went to two interesting side events this week … One was organized by the Indian Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank, and the other by the Chinese environmental NGO Shan Shui Conservation Center in collaboration with WWF.
The Indian workshop was interesting to me because of the subject it discussed: Removing Barriers to Private Sector Investment in Climate Solutions. According to several panelists of the workshop, the private sector, especially the financial segment of it, is capable of filling the big financing gap between the investment needed for CO2 mitigation and what the public funding (government funds) can possibly offer … To attract private sector investments in fighting climate change, risk management is key, the financial experts said at the workshop. Policies that can reduce investment risk are needed.
The Chinese workshop also concerned the business sector, but from a different angle. It had several Chinese business leaders talking about their perspectives on climate change. Wang Shi, Chairman of China’s famous real estate developer Wanke, and Feng Lun, Chairman of another well-known giant building developer Vantone, each told their personal stories at the workshop, which were quite effective advocacy …
What I found more encouraging than these personal convictions was a joint statement by some 200 Chinese companies and organizations, including Wang and Feng, at the event in Copenhagen. The statement recognizes the urgent need to fight global warming and promises to give strong support to Chinese Government’s recent commitment to carbon intensity reduction.”
AFL-CIO blog: Posted December 10 by Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council: Workers’ Rights Message Taking Hold in Copenhagen
“Something promising is happening in Copenhagen.
Yesterday, the government of Norway announced support of “just transition” language, a key part of our approach to a new green economy. Under a just transition program, workers have the right to a voice in their workplace, the right to form a union and bargain collectively and the right to have access to training on the latest technology. And that message appears to be working.
Our labor delegation also met privately with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson. It was an open, productive discussion of the just transition concepts and how they related directly to our efforts in Congress. She got it, telling us that she appreciated our frank approach in addressing climate change and in linking it to job opportunities.
Jackson said she wants to see EPA’s work lead to green industry development. We told her we want to see the same and we urged her to spread the just transition message in the statement we gave to her team.
In other developments, France has proposed a financial transaction tax to help pay for international adaptation to new climate change rules. This is similar to the idea the AFL-CIO has been proposing to raise revenues in the United States for job creation.”
Green For All Copenhagen Blog: Posted December 8 by Ada McMahon, Online Communications Associate: Copenhagen climate talks kick-off with tension over leaked text.
“Yesterday was the first day of the 15th UN Conference on Climate Change, which runs through December 18th. The Conference opened with speeches, concerts, and actions as delegates from 192 nations and tens of thousands of citizens of the world descended on Copenhagen, Denmark.
Despite lofty speeches about coming together to seal a deal, the first day of the conference reinforced tensions between wealthy and developing nations. Draft negotiating text, likely between the United States, Britain, and Denmark, was leaked on Monday. The Guardian reported that the leaked text would set emissions targets that unfairly burden developing countries and give the World Bank, rather than the UN, control of financing poor nations as they adapt to climate change. Developing nations interpreted the leaked text as an indication that wealthy nations are trying to cut an unfair backroom deal without them …
Some argue that these concerns are overblown, and that the text is just a framework for negotiations and will be changed considerably throughout the process.
Whatever the meaning of the leaked text, the voices of the most vulnerable people and countries must be central to the negotiations in Copenhagen. There is simply no way that a deal struck between the wealthiest nations in the world will protect and provide opportunity for the communities and nations that are most vulnerable to the climate crisis and shifts in the global economy.”
For more news about the climate talks in Copenhagen, check out these blogs and websites:
Grist
Huffington Post
It’s Getting Hot in Here (for a youth perspective)
Third World Network (for a climate justice perspective)
In other news …
*Ready to do more to press for climate action in Copenhagen? In support of a fair, ambitious and binding global climate deal, people all over the U.S. and in every corner of the world will join together this weekend for a massive global day of action. Thousands of candlelight vigils, marches, “signature walls” and other events will take place from December 11-13. Show your support by attending one of the 400+ actions in the United States. Go to http://tcktcktck.org/realdeal to find an event near you.
*Environmental Protection Agency takes another step toward regulating greenhouse gases. On Monday, the EPA issued a formal finding that greenhouse gas emissions threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. This finding means that the EPA will soon move to regulate GHG emissions from facilities like power plants and oil refineries that emit more than 25,000 tons of GHG per year. It also means that opponents of the Senate climate and clean energy bill may reconsider their positions, if they hope to have any influence over federal plans to address GHG emissions.
*Check out our newest clean energy success stories! The Apollo Alliance has new signature stories on our website about a green jobs and equity campaign victory in Massachusetts (Massachusetts Apollo Wins Key Victory) and a model weatherization training program in San Diego (San Diego Creates Green Pathways Out of Poverty). We also have a story about the Arkansas Economic Development council’s successful efforts to attracting wind manufacturing firms to the state (Watch out, Wal-Mart–Wind Manufacturing is the New Kid on the Block in Arkansas).
The Oracle Sun deal is dragging on as the EU is still doubtful that the software giant will provide a good home for MySQL, an open-source database system owned by Sun which competes with some of Oracle’s offerings. The proposed acquisition, in which Oracle would buy Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion, is under scrutiny in Europe, and Oracle defended its motives yesterday in a private meeting saying that EU regulators have been overly selective in the evidence they chose to present and some of the studies they used to back up their claims that the deal would be detrimental to competition in the market. 
Real-time search is the hot topic right now, especially since Google has rolled out a full-blown service inside the main search engine. Bing has been doing it for more than a month now, Yahoo has just revealed it will integrate tweets as well, and now real-time search is moving to enterprise search as Google has announced that it will serve results from Twitter with its Google Search Appliance for businesses.