Climate One

Through all the growing pains and political attacks, the U.S. solar industry is still moving ahead. But it still only accounts for 1 percent of all U.S. electricity. With the market driving down cost going solar “makes perfect economic sense,” says Marco Krapels. Founders of three large solar firms and a banker talk about tapping the sun to create jobs, investment opportunities, and the shadow of China. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on February 5, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An energy “renaissance” is happening in the U.S. and Rhonda Zygocki, Executive VP of Policy and Planning at Chevron, says it is “driven by innovation” and the natural gas and oil reserves trapped in slate. This renaissance is not without its issues and Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund, warns that “while the economic benefits [of fracking] are obvious, the environmental implications of not doing this right in some cases are equally obvious.” Krupp warns that the fragmented nature of the industry makes it resistant to change and regulation. Zygocki walks us through some of the innovations and changes Chevron is introducing for safer and more efficient energy production. To find a way to reduce emissions in the future “we need to look at solutions at scale,” says Zygocki who questions the ability of renewables such as solar to scale up in time. Krupp sees California as the future of renewable technology and says that there’s “nothing like a profit motive” to boost innovation. A conversation between Chevron and EDF on the issues surrounding the hydraulic fracturing industry and powering America’s economy. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on February 4, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Social entrepreneurs and youth advocates are reaching out to schools across the country to engage the next generation in the climate dialogue. It’s not just about facts and numbers, but “comes down to telling the story right,” says Mike Haas, Founder of the Alliance for Climate Education. Engaged kids mean engaged families and entrepreneurs like Carleen Cullen, Founder & Executive Director of Cool the Earth, are building on this “symbiotic” relationship to educate communities. Skeptics might discourage some, but youth advocate Rosemary Davies says, “like with any idea there is going to be some resistance, but there is a consensus that climate change is real.” A conversation about how youth can build a better future, starting now. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on January 29, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From organic cotton to recycled zippers many clothing brands are trying to establish their bona fides with consumers who care about the health of their bodies and the planet. To reduce impact, leaders of the $200 billion U.S. clothing industry are calling for collaboration between companies and a two-way dialogue with consumers. “No one company, no matter how big it is, can change the world itself on an issue this complex,” says Chip Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. In efforts to reduce the footprint of the clothing industry, Patagonia and Levi’s are calling for conscious consumerism. “We want to encourage our customers to use [our product] as much as they can as long as they can,” said Rick Ridgeway, VP of Environmental Affairs at Patagonia, “capitalism based on growth is not sustainable.” Listen to a conversation between Levi’s and Patagonia on making America’s clothing industry more sustainable. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on January 25, 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Power Mix Cheap natural gas is changing the energy mix in America. Energy companies are increasingly making the switch from coal to cheaper, cleaner natural gas to fuel their power plants. These companies “are paying far more attention to the price of natural gas than environmental regulations,” says Trevor Houser, partner at the Rhodium Group. Shrinking domestic markets have America’s coal industry looking overseas to surging economies in China and India. Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign and Ross Macfarlane, Sr. Advisor at Climate Solutions, say developing these coal reserves would mean “game over” for global warming. Trevor Houser points out that the lower sulfur content of American coal could go a long way in reducing particulate pollution in China that drifts to the West Coast of the United States. Listen to a conversation between experts on the future of coal and natural gas. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on January 15, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lost In The Wash With everything from hand soap to glass cleaner labeled as “eco-friendly” or “sustainable” consumers are suffering from green fatigue. We are just starting “to align our spending with our values,” says Dara O’Rourke, co-founder of Good Guide. Transparency is the name of the game and social media “hashtags” mean brands “don’t get to control the message anymore,” says O’Rourke, “I don’t think they get to tell us what to believe or not to believe.” The roundtable, including William Brent, Executive VP of Weber Shandwick, and Aron Cramer, President and CEO of BSR, points out that consumer behavior is critical to understanding (and reducing) the lifetime carbon footprint of a product. Listen to a conversation between experts on the next step towards a greener marketplace. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on January 11, 2013 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Congregation Power Rabbi Yonatan Neril, Founder and Executive Director, Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, Jerusalem Reverend Sally Bingham, Founder, Interfaith Power and Light Reverend Ng, First Chinese Baptist Church, San Francisco “As a priest, if I’m going to start talking about what humans are doing to the planet...I need scientific backing. I need to be in close communication with the scientific community or I have no business making those remarks,” said Rev. Canon Sally Bingham. Leaders from many religious traditions are acting as stewards of creation by powering their congregations with clean energy and encouraging smart policies in their communities. Leaders of this movement contend that all major religions have a mandate to care for creation. “Being at the top of creation we have a particular responsibility to treat it with respect,” Rabbi Yonatan Neril says. Religious leaders come together at Climate One to discuss how their faith impacts their approach to climate change and what they are doing about it. “Solar panels and solar energy is achievable,” Rev. Don Ng told us. Listen in to hear how communities of faith around the world are getting involved to build a more sustainable future. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on December 12, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Hansen: Stephen Schneider Climate Science Communication Award Blurb: Dr. James Hansen, NASA climatologist, on communicating climate change to the next generation, human fingerprints on Superstorm Sandy, and inspiring action. "I'm very disappointed [California] chose a half-baked system like cap-and-trade, with offsets," said NASA climatologist James Hansen. He prefers a carbon fee and dividend and, in the absence of a strong carbon price, says the risks of reaching climatic tipping points that could bring catastrophic consequences rise. He also said people spreading disinformation about climate change “are smart enough to know what they are doing” and perhaps should be sued "for crimes against humanity.” Dr. Hansen is the recipient of the 2012 Stephen Schneider Award for Climate Science Communication, a $10,000 award in memory of the late great Stanford climate scientist and former member of the Climate One Advisory Council. James Hansen joins Climate One founder Greg Dalton to discuss recent wild weather, communicating climate change to the younger generation, climate change in politics, human fingerprints on Superstorm Sandy, and inspiring action. James Hansen, Head, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Adjunct Professor, Columbia University's Earth Institute; Author, Storms of My Grandchildren This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on December 4, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political Science Blurb: Michael Mann, Katharine Hayhoe, and Bill Anderegg tackle the political nature of climate science and their experiences as ‘climate warriors.’ Michael Mann warns that "we can't allow science to be killed. We can't allow the scientific agenda to be set by those that have vested interests to not have the truth be unveiled." Over the past decade climate science has become increasingly politicized. Today many candidates claim the science is unsettled and scientists are the targets of smear campaigns. Climate scientists who have taken on public roles cope with personal threats, hacking attacks and assaults on their professional integrity. "We are not in this because we value people's opinions of us. We are not in this because we want to receive pleasant emails in the morning. We are in this because this is the truth and we have to tell it," said evangelist climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. Michael Mann, Katharine Hayhoe, and Bill Anderegg discuss their experiences as climate scientists in a field under the magnifying glass of politics, economics and amplified emotions Michael Mann, Professor of Geosciences, Penn State; Author, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars Katharine Hayhoe, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas Tech University Bill Anderegg, Doctoral Student, Stanford This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on December 4, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carbon Math Bill McKibben, Founder, 350.org, Author, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet John Hofmeister, CEO, Citizens for Affordable Energy; Former President, Shell Oil Company Activist Bill McKibben and former president of Shell Oil Company John Hofmeister come together at Climate One to discuss the current state of the rhetoric around energy and the technology behind it. While both McKibben and Hofmeister agree that the world needs better energy alternatives, they disagree on the timeline. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on November 9, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

GMO: Label or Not? Jesus Arredondo, Principal and Founder, Advantage Government Consulting LLC Kent Bradford, Ph.D., Director of the Seed Biotechnology Center, University of California, Davis Ken Cook, President, Environmental Working Group Jessica Lundberg, Lundberg Family Farms Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One, Moderator Proposition 37 on the upcoming California ballot is a high-stakes food fight with national implications. The measure would bring California, and by extension the United States, in line with the various GMO disclosure requirements already in place in Europe, Australia and Japan. Advocates for GMO labeling say consumers have a right to know if they are eating "Frankenfood." Food companies, led by Monsanto, Cargill, and General Mills, along with other critics, say disclosure would be misleading and alarm consumers. A Reuters story recently reported the proposition “could upend the U.S. food business from farm to fork if it prompts makers of popular foods to dump GMO ingredients.” What do we know about the safety of food with GMO ingredients? How would labeling impact the national food system? How much would it cost? Polls indicate voters favor GMO disclosure, but opponents, led by Monsanto, have a hefty war chest. Join a lively debate about one of the most controversial issues in the upcoming election. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on October 25, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tear Down that Dam? Susan Leal, Former General Manager, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Mike Marshall, Executive Director, Restore Hetch Hetchy Spreck Rosekrans, Director of Policy, Restore Hetch Hetchy Jim Wunderman, CEO, Bay Area Council Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One, Moderator A measure on the San Francisco ballot asks voters to consider a two-phase plan that could lead to draining the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. Leaders on both sides of the debate will tackle this thorny issue and look at other regional water issues in the age of climate disruption. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on October 15, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Energy and the Election Donnie Fowler, Founder and CEO, Dogpatch Strategies Bob Inglis, Former Republican U.S. Representative, South Carolina Bill Reilly, Former Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tom Steyer, Managing Partner, Farallon Capital Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One, moderator High gasoline prices, hydraulic fracturing and the Keystone XL Pipeline have kept energy in the headlines. How will that play this election cycle? What national policies should be pursued to advance American competitiveness? How is natural gas changing energy politics in America? Are Democrats sanctimonious and Republicans delusional about climate change, or is this unfair stereotyping? South Carolina Representative Bob Inglis lost a 2010 primary election after saying his party needs to stop denying mainstream climate science. What lessons can be draw from that, and what does it augur for bipartisan action on carbon pollution? Join us for a conversation on powering America's future. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on October 9, 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clean Money Dennis McGinn, President, American Council on Renewable Energy Clint Wilder, Author, Clean Tech Nation John Bohn, CEO, Renewable Energy Trust The funding outlook is cloudy for parts of the clean energy sector. Production tax credits for wind energy may expire at the end of the year, and some members of Congress are taking aim at military spending on innovative biofuels as Pentagon budget cuts loom. Since the Solyndra disaster, there's been vigorous debate about what level of risk government should take with taxpayer money. Yet many major advances in American energy and transportation – from jet engines to interstate highways and nuclear power – involved public-private partnerships. Can government and business partnerships around clean fuels be forged in the current political climate? What technology areas are most promising? What policies are having the most impact? Join a discussion about getting the money flowing so clean energy can flow. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on September 28, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Green New Deal Michael Grunwald, Senior National Correspondent, Time; Author, The New New Deal Nancy Pfund, Managing Partner, DBL Investors Is the Obama stimulus package working to create promised jobs? What is politics and what is truth? This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on September 17, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Building Green Cities David Gensler, Executive Director, Gensler Craig Hartman, Design Partner, SOM Michael Deane, Chief Sustainability Officer, Turner Construction Phil Williams, Vice President, Webcor Builders How are some of the largest building design and construction firms meeting client goals for more efficient resource utilization and cleaner built environments? This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on September 7, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Building Innovation Gary Dillabough, Managing Partner, Westly Group Ann Hand, CEO, Project Frog Kevin Surace, Founder, Serious Energy Cleantech entrepreneurs are changing the way buildings are designed and manufactured, saving time, costs, and energy -- but they face many challenges. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on September 7, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

EV Riders John Kalb, Founder, EV Charging Pros; Owner of a BMW ActiveE Andrea Kissack, Senior Editor for Quest, KQED Felix Kramer, Founder, CalCars; Owner of a Chevy Volt and Nissan LEAF What makes electric cars so appealing to drive? Is range anxiety really a serious concern? Climate One asks three Bay Area electric vehicle owners what it’s like to be ahead of the curve of the transportation frontier. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on August 22, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Story Wars Carrie Armel, Researcher, Stanford; Co-Chair, Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference Jon Else, Cinematographer, Last Call at the Oasis; Professor of Journalism, UC Berkeley Jonah Sachs, Co-founder, Free Range Studios; Author, Story Wars Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One, moderator What's more powerful in shaping human perceptions--facts or stories? Where does the truth lie, and how will we know it? This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on July 10, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Muller, Professor of Physics, UC Berkeley In conversation with Greg Dalton, Found of Climate One, moderator Physicist Richard Muller challenges scientific data used in deductions about global warming, and comes to his own conclusions on a variety of energy issues. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on June 21, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nuclear Revival? Jim Boyd, Former Commissioner, California Energy Commission Marv Fertel, CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute Joe Rubin, Reporter, Capital Public Radio/Center for Investigative Journalism Greg Dalton, Climate One founder, moderator "For the first time in 30 years, two new nuclear plants are in the works in the US. But in light of the Fukushima plant disaster in Japan, along with shifting energy markets, is there a future for nuclear power?" This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on June 11, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Innovation Power Dan Adler, President, California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) Jeff Byron, Vice Chair, Clean Tech Open; former Commissioner, California Energy Commission Matt Scullin, Founder & CEO, Alphabet Energy, Inc. Cathy Zoi, Partner, Silver Lake Kraftwerk; former CEO, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection "What's on the horizon for clean tech? What are the barriers to innovation and what role should the government play? Climate One speaks to Dan Adler (President, California Clean Energy Fund), Jeff Byron (Vice Chair, Clean Tech Open; former Commissioner, California Energy Commission), Matt Scullin (Founder & CEO, Alphabet Energy, Inc.), and Cathy Zoi (Partner, Silver Lake Kraftwerk; former CEO, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection) on innovation in the clean tech world.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on June 4, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Green Myths Busted Diana Donlon, Cool Foods Campaign Director, The Center For Food Safety David Friedman, Deputy Director, Union of Concerned Scientists Betsy Rosenberg, Radio Host, On The Green Front Concerned citizens who seek to reduce their individual impact on climate change are often misguided in their choices. Transportation? Household energy use? Food? Where can the individual make the greatest impact? Our panel of experts pokes holes in current myths and reveals how we can truly create change. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on May 21, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Coll: ExxonMobil and American Power Steve Coll, Author, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power; former Managing Editor, The Washington Post In Conversation with Greg Dalton, Climate One, The Commonwealth Club ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond said in 2000 that there was "no convincing scientific evidence" that carbon dioxide would disrupt the Earth's climate. Nine years later, CEO Rex Tillerson changed course and announced support for a carbon tax if it was revenue neutral and did not increase the size of government. ExxonMobil's maneuvers on pricing carbon are just one theme running through Steve Coll's book Private Empire. He writes that ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress than any other corporation and in some countries its influence towers above the US Embassy. Within the energy industry, it is regarded as a highly efficient and profitable corporate machine with strong safety standards and relatively low rates of accidents and spills. Join us for the inside story of one of the world’s most secretive and powerful companies as told by a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on May 8, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Crash Course Chris Martenson, Ph.D., Futurist; Author, The Crash Course Tom Van Dyck, Senior Vice President, RBC Wealth Management In the midst of all the doom and gloom about the economy, where's the hope for building resilience back into family and community finances? Which personal choices will make a difference in regaining prosperity? Join two experts speaking about where we've been and where we're headed. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on April 24, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Power Poll Donnie Fowler, Clean Tech Strategist Loren Kaye, President, California Foundation for Commerce and Education Dave Metz, Pollster, FM3 "When Americans step into the voting booth, what influences their decisions on energy issues? Join us as we explore public attitudes underlying America’s energy future.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on April 19, 2012. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Covering Electric Cars Chelsea Sexton, EV expert featured in Who Killed the Electric Car? Katie Fehrenbacher, Senior Writer, GigaOM Ucilia Wang, Contributor, Forbes What's driving electric car sales? Who's buying, and which manufacturers understand how to market to these buyers? Does VC capital and government funding help or hinder progress? Listen in as three experts debate the issues. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on April 23, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Water World Laurent Auguste, CEO, Veolia Water Americas Jonas Minton, Water Policy Advisor, Planning and Conservation League Jason Morrison, Program Director, Pacific Institute Wild weather and growing population are increasing stress on global fresh water supplies. Scientists project more extremes of both too much and not enough water in some places and times. In the United States, aging infrastructure is in need of upgrade, but cash-strapped governments have little appetite for big-ticket items these days. And then there’s the need to adapt California’s water capture and storage systems to the climate-driven "new normal." Is there a global water crisis? What role should corporations and governments play in stewarding water resources in the American West and in a growing and thirsty world? Join us for a look into the future of the essence of life. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on March 29, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaking Youth to Power Abigail Borah, student, SustainUS.org Tania Pulido, Green For All Fellow; Brower Youth Award winner Adarsha Shivakumar, Stanford student, litigation plaintiff From courtrooms to diplomatic enclaves, youth advocates are clamoring to make their voices heard. Climate Progress dubbed 21-year-old college student Abigail Borah the “Durban Climate Hero” by for her appeal for faster action at a recent UN climate conference. Other advocates are filing suits claiming the U.S. and state governments have a legal responsibility to protect the atmosphere for future generations. Join us for a conversation with youth trying to build a cleaner future starting now. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on March 26, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Going Local Dan Rosen, Founder and CEO, Solar Mosaic Michael Shuman, Author, Local Dollars Local Sense Andrew Swallow, Founder, Mixt Greens; Author, Mixt Salads: A Chef's Bold Creations After decades of globalization there’s a new current pulling the other direction. Local food caught on and now people are thinking about buying other products from another county instead of another continent. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on March 23, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

GM CEO Dan Akerson Dan Akerson, Chairman and CEO, General Motors THaving posted the most profitable year in it history, General Motors seeks to drive technology toward a cleaner future. GM CEO, Dan Akerson says the “new GM” wants to be part of environmental solutions not the problem. He also talks about the Chevy Volt, climate-driven business risk, and funding of the controversial Heartland Institute. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on March 7, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Durban to Rio Tom Heller, Executive Director, Climate Policy Initiative; Professor, Stanford Law School Marc Stuart, Co-Founder, EcoSecurities Mark Schapiro, Senior Correspondent, Center for Investigative Reporting None of the experts gathered for this Climate One conversation expect much to come from the United Nations climate change negotiations.That’s not to say they think action has stalled. Rather, the panel, which included an international environmental lawyer, a clean energy investor, and a muckraking journalist, say to expect countries to continue investing in clean energy and carbon-cutting projects within their borders. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on February 29, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cruising 55 Shad Balch, Environment and Energy Communications, General Motors Roland Hwang, Director of Transportation Programs, NRDC Mary Nichols, Chair, California Air Resources Board Chris Paulson, VP of Strategy, Coda Automotive Have regulators, environmentalists, and automakers reached détente on the need to boost the fuel efficiency of America’s vehicle fleet? If one judges by the bonhomie displayed on stage by California’s top climate official, a transportation advocate, and two auto-industry executives during this Climate One panel, the answer is a resounding yes.The panel convened two weeks after the California Air Resources Board unanimously approved new rules that will require nearly 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles to be on the road by 2025. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on February 13, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Power Plays: Media Roundtable David Baker, Reporter, San Francisco Chronicle Dana Hull, Reporter, San Jose Mercury News Cassandra Sweet, Reporter, Dow Jones Clean energy has boomed in recent years, but to guarantee its continued growth investors need stable, long-term policy support, according to three of the Bay Area’s leading energy journalists.The panel also warns consumers to brace themselves for higher energy prices, predicting that California drivers could be paying $5 per gallon for gas as early as this summer. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on February 3, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sun Spots David Hayes, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Interior John Laird, Secretary, California Resources Agency David Festa, West Coast Vice President, Environmental Defense Fund Michael Hatfield, Director of Development, First Solar Can large solar farms and the California desert co-exist? Yes, says this expert panel, which includes state and federal policymakers, California Resources Agency Secretary John Laird and Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes; an environmental advocate, David Festa, with the Environmental Defense Fund; and a project developer, Michael Hatfield, with First Solar. All agree that the Obama administration is on the right track with its commitment to bring relevant stakeholders together early in the process and in its preference for reviewing projects on a landscape scale. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on January 30, 2012 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2011 has been marked by extreme weather. In the U.S. alone, a record dozen disasters caused more than $1 billion in damage. This, and the release last month of a special UN report on extreme weather, was the backdrop for this Climate One panel featuring three leading climate scientists. Chris Field, Professor of Environmental Earth Sciences, Stanford University, is Co-Chair of the IPCC working group that produced the extreme weather report. He says the report reached three main conclusions: that extreme weather events are increasing; that losses are increasing; and that there’s a lot we can do about it: “smart things that don’t necessarily cost a lot that can be protective of assets and protective of lives.” What the extreme weather events tell us, says Michael Oppenheimer, Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Princeton University, is that “the climate is changing, and we have to learn how to deal with that. The good news, as Chris said, is that there are a lot of specific examples where we have been successful. We’re falling behind right now. But, at certain places, at certain times, people have done a very good job.” One area acutely threatened by climate change is food production, where decades of steady gains could be reversed. Chris Field notes that global food production has increased by a predictable 1% to 2% per year over the past 50 years. But, he warns, “I see food security at the heart of a perfect storm.” One proven hedge against this uncertainty is resiliency, says Karen O'Brien, Professor of Sociology and Human Geology, University of Oslo. “A lot of people think of resilience as going back to what it was before, but it’s also about being adaptive, being able to deal with these changes that are coming in a way that has a short- and long-term perspective.” The reality of extreme weather is forcing impacted individuals – whatever their personal beliefs about climate change – to acknowledge that something is amiss. “What we hear a lot from farmers, for example, is that they don’t really think about climate change by reading headlines about climate change forecasts,” says Dave Friedberg, Founder and CEO, The Climate Corporation. “They think about climate change when they’ve had a significant loss two, three years in a row. I think the psychology of risk and the psychology of loss is such that you don’t necessarily think about it unless it is something you can relate to, or there’s an experience you’ve had associated with it.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on December 13, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication Dr. Richard Alley, Professor of Geosciences, Penn State The event is a moving tribute to the late Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider, as Richard Alley is honored as the inaugural winner of the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication. Alley, the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, is also host of the PBS documentary "Earth: The Operators Manual." Alley and Climate One’s Greg Dalton talk about the challenges confronting scientists who carry on Schneider’s legacy of communicating climate science to the public and policymakers. The intent of the PBS series and companion book, Alley says, is to present both the risks and opportunities presented by climate change, and to use different messengers to tell the story. “We’re hoping to communicate more, not only the imperatives of doing something, but the amazing opportunities that are out there,” he says. The good news is that we have the tools we need to get started. “The first place to start is that we know we can get there without game-changers. This is the wonderful thing. If you can get a hundredth of a percent of the sun’s energy, that’s all of humanity’s energy. If you can put a wind farm on the windiest 20% of the plains and deserts of the world, that is far more than humanity’s energy needs.” And it helps if that message isn’t coming solely from him: “‘Climate change matters to you,’ I can say that. But why now have an admiral in the U.S. Navy say it, because climate change matters to them.” He also doesn’t want to prescribe policy solutions. “I would like very much to bring forward what we know, why it matters, and what opportunities are attached to that knowledge. And then stop and say, ‘It’s yours,’” he says. That handoff invariably involves asking policymakers, and the public, to grapple with the tricky concept of scientific uncertainty. Fortunately, Alley says, Stephen Schneider excelled at explaining uncertainty, using techniques that Alley has made his own. “You have to say: ‘This is what we know. And this is as good as it can get. And this is as bad as it can get.’ And make that very clear to people,” he says. And though his inbox is sometimes the target of skeptics’ screeds, Alley’s preferred response is to engage. “There may be bad people out there, but I don’t talk to them,” he says. “Even the ones who call me names, when you can actually sit down with them, they care. Usually they’re arguing about things that are not really what they care about. What they really care about are their grandkids.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on December 6, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boom or Bust? Dan Miller, Managing Director, The Roda Group Climate change “is going to dominate our world in the next century. It’s a very big risk, but it’s also a tremendous opportunity, if we make the right choices,” says Dan Miller. Miller, Managing Director at the venture capital firm The Roda Group, notes here that climate change is also treated much differently than other global threats. We spend billions on counterterrorism, to combat AIDS and other infectious diseases, to prevent a nuclear reactor meltdown, “but these kinds of risks have very low probabilities of actually affecting you. Yet we still worry about them a lot and are willing to take government action to combat them.” “Climate change, on the other hand, if we don’t address it, has the likely outcome that it will have catastrophic effects for nearly everyone,” he says. After reciting a depressing list of climate change impacts that are likely to or are already damaging the Earth’s natural systems – among them sea-level rise, drought, wildfires, melting permafrost, collapse of ice sheets , ocean acidification – Miller asks the salient question: “Why do we not act? Why, when we know the problem is huge, do we totally ignore it?” Evolutionary psychology offers some answers, he says. He identifies the factors working against action on climate change: CO2 and other planet-warming pollutants are invisible; the challenge is unprecedented; the causality is complex; the impacts are unpredictable and indirect; and all of us are complicit. Once one acknowledges the reality of climate change, there is a corresponding obligation to act, Miller says. He adds that individual action begins with asking our children for forgiveness, before moving on to reducing your carbon footprint, and believing, learning and engaging. What can countries do? Miller offers four recommendations: move to 100% carbon-free electricity in 10 to 20 years; keep tar sands and oil shale in the ground; expand R&D into geo-engineering, especially carbon capture and storage; and put a price on carbon. Miller’s preferred carbon-pricing vehicle is a so-called Clean Energy Dividend. A carbon fee would be added upstream, at the mine, power plant, refinery, or factory – enough to gradually raise the price of gasoline by $1 per gallon. Then, the federal government returns 100% of the proceeds on a per capita basis to citizens via a monthly check, with parents receiving one-half shares for up to two children.“That would drive a new economy of renewable energy and energy efficiency. I think most people would like it. I think conservatives would like it. It doesn’t raise any money for the government,” says Miller. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on November 18, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sun Up Dan Shugar, CEO, Solaria Tom Dinwoodie, CTO, SunPower In the wake of the collapse of solar panel maker Solyndra, the solar industry has received front-page treatment for the first time. Unfortunately, most of the coverage has been negative and ill-informed. In danger of being lost, industry veterans Dan Shugar and Tom Dinwoodie tell this Climate One audience is the good news – that solar is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States. Dan Shugar, CEO, Solaria, offers a sense of the scale of the growth. “Solar is, for the last 10 years, the fastest-growing energy technology,” he says, recording 69% annually compounded growth, 10 years in a row. “Last year, our industry manufactured, shipped, and installed for homes, businesses, and power plants 17 gigawatts of power. That’s the daytime equivalent of what 17 nuclear power plants put out,” he says. Tom Dinwoodie, CTO, SunPower, adds that even assuming a slower annual growth rate, say 15%, solar could supply 100% of the United States’ electricity requirement by 2040. “In the last three years, if you just look at North America, there’s been three times more wind and solar installations, in megawatts installed, than coal,” says Dan Shugar. Dinwoodie and Shugar also address two recent events that have buffeted the industry – German firm SolarWorld’s WTO complaint alleging that Chinese state support has facilitated the flooding of the market with low-cost panels, and the bankruptcy of Solyndra. Yes, the SolarWorld dumping complaint has divided the industry, says Dinwoodie. But “you’ll see demand in the world pick up as a result of these low costs, and there will be more a supply-demand balance in the future.” Overlooked in media coverage of the issue, Dan Shugar adds, is that China maintains a 17% import duty on foreign panels. “We think having a conversation and trying to level the playing field would be the right way to go about equalizing that,” he says. On Solyndra, Dinwoodie says the firm “is basically a victim of the success of the solar industry.” Remember, adds Dan Shugar, that Solyndra’s loan guarantee, even at $535 million, represented just 2% of the Department of Energy loan guarantee portfolio. The real issue, he argues, is that “in a capital-starved economy, which is what we are now, it’s very difficult to get loans for proven manufacturing entities.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club of California on November 17, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Great Disruption Paul Gilding, Professor, Cambridge University Program for Sustainability Leadership Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute Growth as we’ve known it is over, say Paul Gilding and Richard Heinberg. “The idea that we can keep on growing the economy up against the physical limits of the Earth” – water, oil, and land – “is not physically possible,” says Gilding, author, The Great Disruption. “We’re in a trap really. If we grow the economy, then we’ll hit those limits again. Prices will go up. Oil prices will go up. Food prices will go up. And the economy will go down,” he says. “If we don’t grow the economy, we’re going to drown in debt. We’re going to take a while to find our way out of this morass that we’ve dug ourselves into.” Richard Heinberg, author, The End of Growth, has written that it took decades for nominal GDP to recover after the Great Depression. But the fallout of the Great Recession, he says, will be much worse. “I don’t think we’ll ever see growth the way we experienced during the decades of the 20th century.” “We have to create an economy that exists within nature’s limits,” he says. “We’ve been borrowing from the past, by way of fossil fuels. We’re also borrowing from future generations, by way of debt – all so that we can consumer as much as possible right now.” Gilding highlights one industry, solar, for which projections are increasingly optimistic. Globally, the industry is growing 40% each year, he notes, and every time the industry doubles, the price per watt falls by 20%. By 2020, he expects solar to be cheaper than coal. That’s not to say that energy incumbents will be easily swept aside. Oil firms are using every known trick, and developing more, to secure new deposits, Heinberg says: “We’re getting better and better at scraping the bottom of the barrel.”“They are fighting tooth and nail,” says Paul Gilding. “They are going to do whatever it takes to defend their cash. It’s up to government to overcome that, and to have the courage to stare them down and to enforce the change.” Such a stand is underway in Gilding’s native Australia, where parliament just passed legislation placing a price on carbon. Yes, the legislation is a compromise, with some carve-outs for energy-intensive industries, says Gilding, but “the key thing is that we’re going to cross that dreaded line that you haven’t crossed yet, which is that we’re saying nationally: you have to deal with the issue.” “I think our country has a larger capacity for denial,” says Richard Heinberg, an understatement that draws laughs. “I think we’re going to have to hit the wall before we see fundamental change.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San francisco on November 7, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Energy Innovation: Overhaul or Tweak? Severin Borenstein, Co-director, Energy Institute, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley Richard Lester, Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center Dan Reicher, Executive Director, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford America’s innovation engine is the envy of the world, yet it struggles to deploy new technology at the scale commensurate with its economic might. This panel of experts from three of the nation’s leading universities says that the U.S. risks falling behind if it refuses to address the technical, financial, and political barriers slowing energy innovation. Richard Lester, Director, MIT Industrial Performance Center, lays out what he calls the three waves of energy innovation: energy efficiency in this decade; the scaling of low- or de-carbonized energy supply technologies beginning in 2020 and running through about 2050; and breakthroughs we don’t even know about today, or may know about but are in the lab stage, but that can take decades to mature. Dan Reicher, Executive Director, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford University, is especially bullish on the promise of Lester’s first wave, energy efficiency. “It is the low-hanging fruit, and it’s also the low-hanging fruit that grows back. We don’t use it up,” he says. Reicher says that energy efficiency and other low-carbon technologies are needlessly held back because we ignore one or more critical criteria: technology, policy, and finance. And even when easy efficiency gains are there to be had, such as in new cars, says Severin Borenstein, Co-Director, Energy Institute, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, we are slow to act. “The technologies are getting better, but gasoline, for the most part, remains cheap. When you ask people how much they need to save to drive a smaller car, it’s a lot more than most people are willing to give up,” he says. These difficulties and more – think our broken political system – have convinced Richard Lester that a new approach, one not dependent upon raising the price of energy, is necessary. “It may be time for a shift in the policy debate to focus less on what is certainly the key requirement of increasing the price of energy to reflect these costs and focusing more on the other half of the equation, which is figuring out how to reduce the cost of the things that we actually want, which are low-carbon energy technologies and efficiency,” he says. Dan Reicher shares Lester’s concern about our broken politics, particularly as it is manifested in the GOP focus on the bankruptcy of Solyndra. “We may be demanding that anything that we put money into has got to show very reliable, very quick success. And not allow for what innovation requires, which is placing bets,” he says. Severin Borenstein urges policymakers to ramp up funding for basic science research, in part because he is pessimistic that existing renewable energy technologies will be sufficient. “The technologies that are going to solve this problem don’t exist yet,” he says, adding that “most of the technologies that exist don’t have the potential to be cost-effective with fossil fuels.” “We can’t take our eye off the price on carbon,” he says. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on November 3, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Executive Chairman, Ford Motor Co. It might sound strange coming from the scion of a family whose name is synonymous with cars, but Bill Ford is worried about a world with too many automobiles. “Even if we clean up our cars, 4 billion clean cars is still 4 billion cars,” he tells this Climate One audience. “Most everybody has been focused on CO2 and fossil fuels and the effect that has on us politically and environmentally. That’s absolutely an appropriate focus,” says William Clay Ford, Jr., Executive Chairman, Ford Motor Co. “But I have started to realize that there is this other looming issue lurking out there that nobody was focused on, and that’s what I started calling ‘global gridlock.’” In a world of 4 billion cars, “How are they going to move? How are we as mobility providers going to provide solutions, and not be part of the problem?,” he asks. His answer, to a large degree, is technology. Ford gives an example. His company is testing a fleet of demonstration vehicles outfitted with vehicle-to-vehicle information technology. Say you are about to enter an onramp for the freeway. Five miles ahead of you, another car rolls to a halt in stop-and-go traffic. You would receive an alert about the traffic jam and be given an alternate route to save time and prevent a larger back-up. Climate One’s Greg Dalton asks if Ford and other automakers feel threatened by the increasingly popular trend of urban car-sharing such as Zipcar. Without hesitating, Ford says: “I think it’s a great opportunity. People don’t have to own cars; they want to have access to cars.” Beyond giving customers access to mobility, Ford stresses his company’s commitment to changing the way cars are fueled. It is investing in R&D in compressed natural gas, hydrogen, fuel cells, and biofuels. But “we are making big bets on electric,” he says, with an all-electric Focus coming later this year and a plug-in model next year. Ford says that his company is also committed to improving the fuel economy of every model it makes. Four years ago, the company set a goal of being the fuel economy leader in every model category. Ford is investing in a suite of technologies, Bill Ford says, because “we really don’t know how the world is going to break out.” He adds: “Until this nation has an energy policy, which we desperately need, all of this is going to be sub-optimized.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 27, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

US Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) America should wean itself from foreign oil and invest in clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Join us for a broad conversation about what Congress could do to promote electric cars, create jobs and spur development of biofuels from forests and agricultural lands. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 26, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beyond Petroleum: Lessons from the Gulf of Mexico Bill Reilly, Co-Chair, National Oil Spill Commission Bob Graham, Co-Chair, National Oil Spill Commission More than a year after oil stopped gushing into the Gulf, the co-chairs of the commission tasked with investigating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill appear together in this Climate One panel to assess the nation’s response to the disaster. Bill Reilly and Bob Graham commend the Obama administration for overhauling regulation of the offshore oil industry, and praise the oil industry for initiating internal reforms, but they blast Congress for doing next to nothing to respond to the spill. Former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly says that the administration and the oil industry have heeded the call for reform. “The systemic reforms that we recommended are underway, certainly in the Interior Department under the direction of Michael Bromwich at BOEMRE and Secretary Salazar. They’ve issued any number of new rules on safety and environmental management that are long overdue, I think, and very defensible, very professional, and very appropriate.” Less expected has been the aggressive push by the oil industry to take control of its own conduct. “Very promising, and to some extent surprising, has been the response of industry,” says Reilly. “Frankly, industry has done more than Congress to respond to our report,” he says. Asked by Climate One’s Greg Dalton to grade the government and industry implementation of commission’s report, former U.S. Senator Bob Graham says: “Probably, in both places, it would be ‘incomplete.’ The actions that have been taken at the executive level in the federal government are very encouraging.” As for Congress, Graham is less than impressed. “The Congress would not get a very good grade because they have essentially done nothing, and in some instances have gone backward.” Reilly and Graham express frustration that the five Gulf states have been unable to reach agreement to settle monetary damages and fund restoration. “We’re still waiting to see what the final settlement looks like, where the money goes,” says Reilly, but “one hopes it goes to restoration when it’s finally allocated.” Graham and Reilly also want money dedicated to monitoring potential health impacts of the spill for residents and those who consume Gulf seafood. “To fully assess the health implications of this event, and the environmental implications, we’re going to require an extended period of time and a substantial investment in research,” Graham says. Graham and Reilly also agreed that we need to reduce the demand for oil – and hence the need for more drilling – altogether. “I don’t see the United States engaged in any serious thinking about what its economy is going to be in the post-oil era,” Graham says.This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 21, 2011 This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 21, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beyond Petroleum: Navy Seals Leading the Charge Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Energy & Installations Jeremy Carl, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University The U.S. military has ambitious plans to reduce its dangerous dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. Can the buying power of the Pentagon drive innovation in new energy technologies and create markets? This conversation explores how the U.S. Navy and other military branches can align their intellectual and financial capital to accelerate and broaden the transition to cleaner sources of electricity and transportation fuels for American forces and the American economy. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 21, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Saltworks and Beyond Peter Calthorpe, Principal Architect, Peter Calthorpe Associates David Lewis, Executive Director, Save the Bay Jack Matthews, Mayor, San Mateo The debate over Saltworks, a proposal to build 12,000 homes on former salt ponds in Redwood City, is a harbinger of coming development fights in the age of climate change. In this October 18 Climate One debate, architect Peter Calthorpe argues that the need for housing in the San Francisco Bay Area is so great that infill development alone can’t meet demand; conservationist David Lewis counters that developing one of the region’s last unprotected wetlands is not worth the cost. “This is not a site for housing,” says Lewis, Executive Director, Save the Bay. “This one area in Redwood City was held onto by the Cargill Salt Company because they wanted to develop it,” he says. “They have no entitlement to develop it. The city’s general plan says it should remain as open space. It’s a priority area for acquisition by the federal wildlife refuge.” “I do have some concerns about it,” says Jack Matthews, He concedes that the development, as planned, seems isolated. Peter Calthorpe, Principal Architect, Calthorpe Associates, argues that Saltworks needs to be assessed not as a stand-alone development project but as a response to regional pressures. “The larger context is that for a very long time we’ve been building more jobs than housing—particularly in the west side of the Bay, in Silicon Valley and the Peninsula. The jobs housing balance has been so askew that we have people commuting from outside the nine-county Bay Area. We’ve been pushing housing way to the periphery.” Citing the Association of Bay Area Governments, Calthorpe says the region will need 72,000 new housing units to keep up with expected demand. There is no way to satisfy demand by only building transit-oriented development along El Camino Real, the region’s main north-south artery, he says. Calthorpe challenges David Lewis to answer how the region can reach a jobs-housing balance without employees moving to sprawling developments in Tracy or Livermore or Gilroy, if projects such as Saltworks aren’t built. “When you push housing farther and farther to the periphery because you don’t want to face up to the challenge in these jobs-rich areas, the environmental footprint, carbon emissions, VMT [vehicle miles traveled], energy consumption, and land consumption—because we all know it’s lower density once it gets out there – all of that, in many cases, is on pristine habitat or farmland.”We do it by building on already developed land and re-configuring our cities, Lewis answers. Saltworks “should have been dead on arrival in the beginning because it’s not the right place,” he says. This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 18, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World Daniel Yergin, Executive Vice President and Chairman, IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates; CNBC Global Energy Expert; Author, The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World Bullish on technology’s ability to tap previously unreachable oil and gas, energy analyst Daniel Yergin tells this Climate One audience to expect the age of fossil fuels to continue well into this century. Yergin is author of The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil age The Prize. A pivotal year for Yergin is 2004 when, he says, the world woke up to the surge in energy demand in emerging markets, notably China. After Yergin’s opening remarks, Climate One’s Greg Dalton reads a 2010 statement from International Energy Agency Chief Economist Fatih Birol expressing concern over rising global oil demand and urging a transition from oil. Yes, the statement was reasonable, Yergin says, we will run out of oil someday. But “we’ve run out of oil – and I don’t say this facetiously – five times.” Referring to the oil shocks of the 1970s, Yergin says, “There are people in this room who know very well that we were going to fall off the oil mountain – and production is now up 30%. We haven’t used up half the world’s oil; we’ve maybe used up 20% of the world’s oil.” Keeping up with demand isn’t just about making new discoveries, Yergin says. Also important are extensions and additions to existing oil fields, prolonging the life of oil plays thought to be exhausted. “It’s technology,” he says. “There’s a tendency to think that technology stagnates, that where you are is where you are going to be. But, in fact, the industry is basically run by scientists and engineers who are trying to push the technology along.” During the audience Q&A, Yergin is asked if he agrees fossil fuel subsidies needed to be reduced to level the playing field for renewables entering the market. “The subsidies question is very complex, and it really depends upon definition,” he says. Jobs are being created in the renewable industry, he says, “but I think the thing we’ll probably see in the next month or so is the fact that in the last three or four years – and this seems counterintuitive – a lot more jobs have actually been created in the conventional energy industry than in the green industry. That doesn’t mean that’s going to be the case five years or 10 years from now when those industries are much more mature.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 13, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Red Alert: China Time, China Scale Peter Greenwood, Executive Director of Strategy, China Light and Power Group Stephen Leeb, Co-author, Red Alert Alex Wang, Visiting Professor, UC Berkeley School of Law Julian Wong, Attorney, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; Former Advisor, U.S. Department of Energy The four China watchers assembled for this Climate One panel debate the motives for, and the implications of, China’s domestic climate action, particularly its abundant clean energy investments. Stephen Leeb, co-author, Red Alert, is the panel’s contrarian. “I don’t think China does anything with the world’s interest at hand; I think they do everything with China’s interest at hand. Climate change is very much a mixed bag for them. Much more important to them is the issue of resource scarcity.” Leeb was suspicious of the intent of China’s renewable energy investments. China, he says, aims to control the solar market to the detriment of foreign players, including the United States. Julian Wong, an attorney with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, agrees with Leeb, up to a point. Yes, energy is a pivotal issue in China’s economic growth, he says, and scarcity issues are “high in the minds of China’s leaders.” He also cites the increasing importance of environmental protection in preventing unrest. “Ultimately, this Communist Party is in power as long as the people allow it to be. If you are getting protests by citizens, by residents, on very fundamental needs, that’s going to get the attention of leaders.” Alex Wang, a visiting professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, emphasizes the importance of the environmental protest movement, citing events this summer at a chemical plant in the city of Dalian and at facilities operated by Jinko Solar. “People are getting more wealthy. They are getting better educated about environmental issues, and they realize that is impacting their health, their children’s health,” he says. Counter to Stephen Leeb, Peter Greenwood, Executive Director of Strategy, China Light and Power Group, says we should vaunt not vilify China’s investments in wind and solar. “It’s not actually, necessarily, a bad story for the rest of the world. Wind turbine prices have fallen in the last couple of years by about 20%. A lot of that is due to the efficiency and scale of Chinese manufacturing,” he says. “What does that do? It means that wind projects that were previously uneconomical become economical. Sites that were previously not feasible become feasible. Subsidies that might otherwise have to be paid by Western and other governments can perhaps operate at lower levels. That’s a beneficial story.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 12, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drop In, Scale Up? Ed Dineen, CEO, LS9 Alan Shaw, CEO, Codexis Jonathan Wolfson, CEO, Solazyme Next-generation biofuels are on the verge of a breakthrough but aren’t ready to displace conventional fuels, three Bay Area biofuel company CEOs say in this Climate One talk. The CEOs insist that their fuels must compete on price with conventional gasoline or diesel, with or without government support, or a price on carbon, which means they have to scale up, fast. For biofuels to scale, all agree, they must be drop-in fuels. Meaning, says Jonathan Wolfson, CEO, Solazyme, “a fuel that fits directly into the existing infrastructure without modification.” “You’ll not replace mass transportation, internal combustion engines, in our lifetime – not at mass scale,” says Alan Shaw, CEO, Codexis. “What drives it is a liquid transportation fuel. We need an alternative to that. We’re still in the very early days. And that’s because the technology is not ready to be deployed at scale.” Ed Dineen, CEO, LS9, says “for the type of technologies we’re practicing” – second-generation biofuels – “I think three years you’ll start to see plants be established. And once the initial plants get established, and we learn the technology, the acceleration will pick up,” he says. “The bigger issue is the capital intensity of these plants,” he adds. “If we see a world of $150 [per barrel] crude, I think that’s going to accelerate the pace of this technology,” he says. Agreeing with Jonathan Wolfson, Shaw says that “the key driver of economics here is feedstock costs” – in this case, sugars. Promisingly, he says, the second-generation cellulosic sugars that he and fellow panelists’ are developing run about a tenth the cost of their first-generation predecessors. The larger price competition, biofuels pitted against conventional crude, would be a fairer one, Wolfson says, if the two sides were evenly matched. “There is one thing people forget, which is that the big integrated oil companies have had 100 years to bury subsidies in all kinds of places. People are talking about Industry should stand up, and We should all be dependent on alternative and renewable fuels meeting parity with petroleum. But the truth is parity isn’t parity because of all these hidden subsidies.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 6, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Truckin' John Boesel, CEO, CALSTART Mike Tunnell, Director, Environmental Affairs, American Trucking Associations Alan Niedzwiecki, CEO, Quantum Technologies In August, the Obama administration announced the first-ever fuel efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks and buses. The three experts convened at this Climate One panel say that the trucking industry is ready to meet the new rules, which require semi-trucks to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2018. “What’s exciting now is that we have some decent public policy in place,” says John Boesel, CEO, CALSTART. “The engineering talent that was dedicated to cleaning up the criteria emissions is going to be applied to helping reduce our dependence on oil and cut greenhouse gas emissions. I think we’re going to see a lot of innovation in this space.” The new rules “will encourage fleets over this short term to develop best-available technology that is there today. It won’t really be technology forcing,” he says. At the same time, he adds, fleets will be looking at alternative fuels, especially natural gas, when they make economic sense. Mike Tunnell, Director of Environmental Affairs, American Trucking Associations, agrees, pointing out that with diesel prices hovering in $3 to $4 gallon range, “fleets are beginning to look more, in America, at alternative fuels and natural gas in an effort to cut some of the fuel costs.” But, he cautions, there is a flip side: the upfront costs for equipment are higher, and fuel availability becomes a concern. Climate One’s Greg Dalton picks up on the supply worries later, asking if fleet operators are concerned energy firms might not meet California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard, which aims to reduce the carbon intensity of California’s transportation fuels by 10% by 2020. “There will be some concerns,” says John Boesel, “but this is a regulation that will encourage them to be more innovative and more creative than they have been in the past.” David Mazaika, Chief Operating Officer, Quantum Technologies, says that plenty of examples, including hybrid buses now in service, prove that the fuel standards can be met. “It certainly can be done; the industry just needs to focus on that. Now, with the new legislation, there are some targets out there that the industry can focus on and really strive to meet.” “The technology is out there to be able to support these types of levels,” he says. “It will be a wide spectrum – everything from aerodynamic improvements to hybrid-drive systems and different fuels.” This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 5, 2011 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices