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What Barack Obama’s inaugaration means for green energy

What Barack Obama’s inaugaration means for green energy
guardian.co.uk 19 January 2009
In a bold departure from past US policies, Barack Obama sees clean energy and ‘green jobs’ as critical in stimulating the economy, writes Keith Schneider from Yale Environment 360, part of the Guardian Environment Network
Even in this era of costly crisis and even more expensive rescue, $50 billion is still a lot of money. That sum — perhaps even more — is what Congressional leaders and aides to President-elect Barack Obama say he will propose to build new transit lines, weatherise buildings, manufacture clean next-generation vehicles, and create new “green collar” jobs.

Even more crucial than the scale of the spending on clean energy is what the President-elect says it represents to his overall economic development strategy. Clean energy projects are a crucial piece of an estimated $700 billion to $1 trillion, two-year stimulus plan to put 3 million people back to work, and the first wave of public investment to transform how America powers itself. Remarkably, it now appears that Obama plans to launch his presidency with a daring idea: To anchor the American economy with energy sources not derived from fossil fuels.

Indeed, the incoming president is proposing to take the conventional relationship between the economy and the environment and stand it on its head. Instead of the economy overshadowing and marginalising environmental concerns, Obama wants to use environmental principles to help drive economic growth.

What Obama’s innaugaration means for green energy | Environment | guardian.co.uk

January 20, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized