Wind and solar power have been growing at a blistering pace in recent years, and that growth seemed likely to accelerate under the green-minded Obama administration. But because of the credit crisis and the broader economic downturn, the opposite is happening: installation of wind and solar power is plummeting.Factories building parts for these industries have announced a wave of layoffs in recent weeks, and trade groups are projecting 30 to 50 percent declines this year in installation of new equipment, barring more help from the government.
Prices for turbines and solar panels, which soared when the boom began a few years ago, are falling. Communities that were patting themselves on the back just last year for attracting a wind or solar plant are now coping with cutbacks.
“I thought if there was any industry that was bulletproof, it was that industry,” said Rich Mattern, the mayor of West Fargo, N.D., where DMI Industries of Fargo operates a plant that makes towers for wind turbines. Though the flat Dakotas are among the best places in the world for wind farms, DMI recently announced a cut of about 20 percent of its work force because of falling sales.
Much of the problem stems from the credit crisis that has left Wall Street banks reeling. Once, as many as 18 big banks and financial institutions were willing to help finance installation of wind turbines and solar arrays, taking advantage of generous federal tax incentives. But with the banks in so much trouble, that number has dropped to four, according to Keith Martin, a tax and project finance specialist with the law firm Chadbourne & Parke.
Wind and solar developers have been left starved for capital. “It’s absolutely frozen,” said Craig Mataczynski, president of Renewable Energy Systems Americas, a wind developer. He projected his company would build just under half as much this year as it did last year.
The two industries are hopeful that President Obama’s economic stimulus package will help. But it will take time, and in the interim they are making plans for a dry spell.
Solar energy companies like OptiSolar, Ausra, Heliovolt and SunPower, once darlings of investors, have all had to lay off workers. So have a handful of companies that make wind turbine blades or towers in the Midwest, including Clipper Windpower, LM Glasfiber and DMI.
Some big wind developers, like NextEra Energy Resources and even the Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens, a promoter of wind power, have cut back or delayed their wind farm plans.
Renewable energy sources like biomass, which involves making electricity from wood chips, and geothermal, which harnesses underground heat for power, have also been slowed by the financial crisis, but the effects have been more pronounced on once fast-growing wind and solar.
Because of their need for space to accommodate giant wind turbines, wind farms are especially reliant on bank financing for as much as 50 percent of a project’s costs. For example, JPMorgan Chase, which analysts say is the most active bank remaining in the renewable energy sector, has invested in 54 wind farms and one solar plant since 2003, according to John Eber, the firm’s managing director for energy investments.
In the solar industry, the ripple effects of the crisis extend all the way to the panels that homeowners put on their roofs. The price of solar panels has fallen by 25 percent in six months, according to Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, who said he expected a further drop of 10 percent by midsummer.
(For homeowners, however, the savings will not be as substantial, partly because panels account for only about 60 percent of total installation costs.)
After years when installers had to badger manufacturers to ensure they would receive enough panels, the situation has reversed. Bill Stewart, president of SolarCraft, a California installer, said that manufacturers were now calling to say, “Hey, do you need any product this month? Can I sell you a bit more?”
The turnaround reflects reduced demand for solar panels, and also an increase in supply of panels and of polysilicon, a crucial material in many panels.
On the wind side, turbines that once had to be ordered far in advance are suddenly becoming available.
“At least one vendor has said that they have equipment for delivery in 2009, where nine months ago they wouldn’t have been able to take new orders until 2011,” Mr. Mataczynski of Renewable Energy wrote in an e-mail message. As he has scaled back his company’s plans, he has been forced to cancel some orders for wind turbines, forfeiting the deposit.
Banks have invested in renewable energy, lured by the tax credits. But with banks tightly controlling their money and profits, the main task for the companies is to find new sources of investment capital.
Wind and solar companies have urged Congress to adopt measures that could help revive the market. But even if a favorable stimulus bill passes, nobody is predicting a swift recovery.
“Nothing Congress does in the stimulus bill can put the market back where it was in 2007 and 2008, before it was broken,” said Mr. Martin, the tax lawyer with Chadbourne & Parke. “But it can help at the margins.”
The solar and wind tax credits are structured slightly differently, but the House version of the stimulus bill would help both industries by providing more immediate tax incentives, alleviating some of their dependency on banks.
Both House and Senate would also extend an important tax credit for wind energy, called the production tax credit, for three years; previously the industry had complained of boom-and-bust cycles with the credit having to be renewed nearly every year.
Over the long term, with Mr. Obama focused on a concerted push toward greener energy, the industry remains optimistic.
“You drive across the countryside and there’s more and more wind farms going up,” said Mr. Mattern of West Fargo. “I still have big hopes.”
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Here Comes the Sun. Right?
BEHIND a giant solar factory here, backhoes are digging away, preparing for a new wing that will quintuple production. Inside, an outspoken German executive named Boris Klebensberger is fretting about the color of the new carpet. Samples perch on his window sill alongside floor plans.
Expanding a factory? Picking out carpeting?
Did anyone tell him that there’s a recession?
Buoyed by the potential promise of a green economy, Mr. Klebensberger, who heads the American branch of SolarWorld AG, a company based in Bonn, Germany, is ramping up production of solar cells in a retrofitted factory that had its grand opening last October — in the teeth of the financial crisis.
“Was I worried about our position? No!” says Mr. Klebensberger, dismissing any hint that he was nervous at the opening. And he remains just as bullish today. SolarWorld’s plant here, which makes enough cells to fit 1,700 solar panels a day, is the biggest of its kind in the United States.
For the residents of Hillsboro, and for the Oregon economy, SolarWorld’s presence is a welcome boon. Its employees enjoy being in start-up mode, while others like the cachet of working for a renewable-energy company — which goes down well in outdoorsy Oregon.
“Green is the way to go,” says Michelle Zillig, who worked at Intel for 18 years before joining SolarWorld as a technician. “People can only have so many computers.”
At first glance, the timing of SolarWorld’s decision to invest $500 million in the new site during a recession, in a state with an unemployment rate second only to Michigan’s, couldn’t have been worse. Prices for the company’s solar panels have slid about 15 percent since the factory opened, a result of growing competition and slowing demand, especially in Europe. Two manufacturers, GE Energy’s solar branch and BP Solar, have cut production in East Coast plants.
But new federal incentives to encourage renewable energy in the United States will give the industry a boost, analysts say.
The recent stimulus package included grants for businesses and utilities that install solar energy systems, and the bank bailout package last year removed the dollar cap on a 30 percent tax credit for home installations. Makers of renewable energy equipment also received help in the stimulus package, signed by President Obama.
“I think the writing on the wall is the U.S. is going to be the big market,” says Jesse Pichel, a solar analyst at Piper Jaffray.
The message for solar companies, Mr. Pichel says, is “get your butt over to the U.S. if you want to participate and get some of that stimulus package money.”
THE United States lost its status as the world’s leading solar manufacturer in the 1990s as interest surged elsewhere. Now it makes little more than 5 percent of solar panels worldwide.
Even with federal support and positive buzz, only a fraction of 1 percent of the electricity in the United States comes from solar panels, leaving ample room for the market to grow.
Germany, SolarWorld’s home, is at the same latitude as southern Alaska, often has cloudy skies and is a much smaller country than the United States. Yet the number of installed solar panels in Germany is more than three times the amount in America. Spain and Japan are also ahead.
“Germany is not a natural for solar, but they’ve had vision, and policy followed the vision, and industry growth followed the policy,” says Raju Yenamandra, the vice president for sales at SolarWorld in California.
For manufacturers, the low penetration rate of solar in the United States spells opportunity. Companies lucky enough to still have financing are building or expanding operations in a range of states, including Oregon, Ohio and New Mexico.
As the German flag fluttering outside the SolarWorld factory in Oregon attests, foreign companies are largely driving the new American manufacturing push.
Mr. Klebensberger and his rivals are especially eager for solar to take off in the desert Southwest, where the sun beats down through often-cloudless skies. California has made a strong solar push, with the amount of solar power installed roughly doubling in 2008 from the previous year.
Recently, new installations of the type of rooftop-ready panels that SolarWorld makes have been growing strongly, with 70 percent more installed in the United States in 2008 than in 2007. In Europe, new installations roughly tripled last year, according to Emerging Energy Research, an independent research firm. But the European number is expected to fall sharply this year, in the wake of a decision by the Spanish government to cut its solar subsidy.
For its part, SolarWorld made its bet on manufacturing in the United States long before the stimulus package arrived. In 2006, it bought the solar division of the Shell Group, which operated factories in California and Washington. Mr. Klebensberger revamped the California factory, throttled back the existing facility in Washington and began scouting other sites in those states, as well as Alabama, Georgia and New Mexico.
“I don’t know how many brochures we got from states that offered us incentives and upfront money,” Mr. Klebensberger says.
The company ultimately settled on a semiconductor factory here that was built in the 1990s and swiftly abandoned after a downturn in the chip industry. Semiconductors are made from the same crystal material as solar panels, and having water and exhaust systems in place helped SolarWorld ramp up faster.
State incentives also helped: Oregon, which has been heavily recruiting wind and solar companies, provided SolarWorld with $40 million in business tax credits.
SolarWorld also gained access to a big pool of potential employees because it is situated in the heart of the Oregon “Silicon Forest,” surrounded by semiconductor plants and a short drive from a much larger Intel factory. SolarWorld’s employment has swelled to more than 500, some of them temporary, which gets the company about halfway to its goal of 1,000 permanent workers by 2011; the company holds new-employee orientations each Monday.
Inside the plant, the factory floor combines the mild chaos and urgency of a start-up with the scale of a public company. In one room, orderly rows of cylindrical furnaces stand like so many trees; they are used to grow crystals weighing several hundred pounds. The crystals are made from polysilicon, a derivative of sand, and form the core ingredient of the solar panels.
In other rooms, the cooked and cooled crystal ingots — looking like spent artillery shells — are sliced by machines into what are called wafers. Then they are made chemically suitable for generating electricity and are overlaid with electric wires, and a slim, dark cell emerges. (The cells, which resemble drink coasters, are sent to SolarWorld’s California plant to be strung together into the finished product that goes onto roofs.)
Many of the processes are still being automated, and the plant is also testing and expanding new systems in mid-production.
“I’ve got this radio here in case things go south,” says Willie Owens, an equipment engineer in goggles and jeans. He was testing new furnaces and water cooling equipment. If there were a big problem, he explains, he would have to hit a button within one minute to activate emergency systems.
The job, he says with relish, provides “an adrenaline rush sometimes.”
Like a number of other SolarWorld employees at all levels, Mr. Owens is a transplant from the semiconductor industry, whose big West Coast factories have suffered badly in the latest downturn. Hynix, for example, closed a plant in Eugene, Ore., last year, resulting in the loss of about 1,100 jobs.
Mr. Owens heard on National Public Radio that SolarWorld was coming to Oregon and decided to jump after seven years at a wafer manufacturer in Portland. “I saw this as an opportunity to get into something that was growing,” he recalls. “Glad I did.”
Even as SolarWorld charges ahead, adding new equipment and breaking ground for its factory expansion, there are daily reminders of the challenges ahead. The company’s share price has declined more than 30 percent in two years, to 21.05 euros ($27.80), largely because of slowing demand and a growing number of manufacturers.
Asia has also become a manufacturing hub for solar power, and many panels from China have entered the market, although the recession has forced some companies to cut back. Suntech Power, a leading Chinese manufacturer, is now using just 55 percent of its factories’ capacity, though it, too, is looking for factory space in the United States for the long term.
Like the rest of the industry, SolarWorld is also trying to adjust to the decline in panel prices, which are likely to keep falling into the summer, given the oversupply and the continuing credit crisis.
Mr. Klebensberger tries to put a positive spin on this, noting that the first quarter — whose results are due in a few weeks — is always relatively weak because Europeans avoid installing panels during the winter.
For all of last year, the company’s sales grew at a heady 31 percent. But the pace of growth in the fourth quarter slowed considerably.
Industrywide installations in the first quarter in California, the largest market in the United States, remain robust. Installers there are wary, however. They say demand dried up in the last six months because companies lack financing and homeowners are more worried about their mortgages than sinking $25,000 or more into making electricity on their roof.
Analysts say the first-quarter figures in California may have had a boost from projects that were already in the pipeline and that future numbers may be less robust. A year ago, installers say, they were calling manufacturers to ask for panels; now the situation is reversed, with manufacturers making sales calls.
In the meantime, the competition among manufacturers is likely to intensify. Even as some of the weaker solar companies resort to layoffs, a number of big names — including Schott, First Solar, SunPower and Sharp — are building, expanding or looking to build manufacturing plants in the United States. Sanyo, the Japanese electronics company, is building a solar wafer factory in Salem, Oregon’s capital, that is to begin production this fall.
Mr. Klebensberger relishes the competition and the potential boost it can give the American economy. Solar energy can provide jobs and energy security, he says, “so it’s a way out of the crisis.”
Expanding a factory? Picking out carpeting?
Did anyone tell him that there’s a recession?
Buoyed by the potential promise of a green economy, Mr. Klebensberger, who heads the American branch of SolarWorld AG, a company based in Bonn, Germany, is ramping up production of solar cells in a retrofitted factory that had its grand opening last October — in the teeth of the financial crisis.
“Was I worried about our position? No!” says Mr. Klebensberger, dismissing any hint that he was nervous at the opening. And he remains just as bullish today. SolarWorld’s plant here, which makes enough cells to fit 1,700 solar panels a day, is the biggest of its kind in the United States.
For the residents of Hillsboro, and for the Oregon economy, SolarWorld’s presence is a welcome boon. Its employees enjoy being in start-up mode, while others like the cachet of working for a renewable-energy company — which goes down well in outdoorsy Oregon.
“Green is the way to go,” says Michelle Zillig, who worked at Intel for 18 years before joining SolarWorld as a technician. “People can only have so many computers.”
At first glance, the timing of SolarWorld’s decision to invest $500 million in the new site during a recession, in a state with an unemployment rate second only to Michigan’s, couldn’t have been worse. Prices for the company’s solar panels have slid about 15 percent since the factory opened, a result of growing competition and slowing demand, especially in Europe. Two manufacturers, GE Energy’s solar branch and BP Solar, have cut production in East Coast plants.
But new federal incentives to encourage renewable energy in the United States will give the industry a boost, analysts say.
The recent stimulus package included grants for businesses and utilities that install solar energy systems, and the bank bailout package last year removed the dollar cap on a 30 percent tax credit for home installations. Makers of renewable energy equipment also received help in the stimulus package, signed by President Obama.
“I think the writing on the wall is the U.S. is going to be the big market,” says Jesse Pichel, a solar analyst at Piper Jaffray.
The message for solar companies, Mr. Pichel says, is “get your butt over to the U.S. if you want to participate and get some of that stimulus package money.”
THE United States lost its status as the world’s leading solar manufacturer in the 1990s as interest surged elsewhere. Now it makes little more than 5 percent of solar panels worldwide.
Even with federal support and positive buzz, only a fraction of 1 percent of the electricity in the United States comes from solar panels, leaving ample room for the market to grow.
Germany, SolarWorld’s home, is at the same latitude as southern Alaska, often has cloudy skies and is a much smaller country than the United States. Yet the number of installed solar panels in Germany is more than three times the amount in America. Spain and Japan are also ahead.
“Germany is not a natural for solar, but they’ve had vision, and policy followed the vision, and industry growth followed the policy,” says Raju Yenamandra, the vice president for sales at SolarWorld in California.
For manufacturers, the low penetration rate of solar in the United States spells opportunity. Companies lucky enough to still have financing are building or expanding operations in a range of states, including Oregon, Ohio and New Mexico.
As the German flag fluttering outside the SolarWorld factory in Oregon attests, foreign companies are largely driving the new American manufacturing push.
Mr. Klebensberger and his rivals are especially eager for solar to take off in the desert Southwest, where the sun beats down through often-cloudless skies. California has made a strong solar push, with the amount of solar power installed roughly doubling in 2008 from the previous year.
Recently, new installations of the type of rooftop-ready panels that SolarWorld makes have been growing strongly, with 70 percent more installed in the United States in 2008 than in 2007. In Europe, new installations roughly tripled last year, according to Emerging Energy Research, an independent research firm. But the European number is expected to fall sharply this year, in the wake of a decision by the Spanish government to cut its solar subsidy.
For its part, SolarWorld made its bet on manufacturing in the United States long before the stimulus package arrived. In 2006, it bought the solar division of the Shell Group, which operated factories in California and Washington. Mr. Klebensberger revamped the California factory, throttled back the existing facility in Washington and began scouting other sites in those states, as well as Alabama, Georgia and New Mexico.
“I don’t know how many brochures we got from states that offered us incentives and upfront money,” Mr. Klebensberger says.
The company ultimately settled on a semiconductor factory here that was built in the 1990s and swiftly abandoned after a downturn in the chip industry. Semiconductors are made from the same crystal material as solar panels, and having water and exhaust systems in place helped SolarWorld ramp up faster.
State incentives also helped: Oregon, which has been heavily recruiting wind and solar companies, provided SolarWorld with $40 million in business tax credits.
SolarWorld also gained access to a big pool of potential employees because it is situated in the heart of the Oregon “Silicon Forest,” surrounded by semiconductor plants and a short drive from a much larger Intel factory. SolarWorld’s employment has swelled to more than 500, some of them temporary, which gets the company about halfway to its goal of 1,000 permanent workers by 2011; the company holds new-employee orientations each Monday.
Inside the plant, the factory floor combines the mild chaos and urgency of a start-up with the scale of a public company. In one room, orderly rows of cylindrical furnaces stand like so many trees; they are used to grow crystals weighing several hundred pounds. The crystals are made from polysilicon, a derivative of sand, and form the core ingredient of the solar panels.
In other rooms, the cooked and cooled crystal ingots — looking like spent artillery shells — are sliced by machines into what are called wafers. Then they are made chemically suitable for generating electricity and are overlaid with electric wires, and a slim, dark cell emerges. (The cells, which resemble drink coasters, are sent to SolarWorld’s California plant to be strung together into the finished product that goes onto roofs.)
Many of the processes are still being automated, and the plant is also testing and expanding new systems in mid-production.
“I’ve got this radio here in case things go south,” says Willie Owens, an equipment engineer in goggles and jeans. He was testing new furnaces and water cooling equipment. If there were a big problem, he explains, he would have to hit a button within one minute to activate emergency systems.
The job, he says with relish, provides “an adrenaline rush sometimes.”
Like a number of other SolarWorld employees at all levels, Mr. Owens is a transplant from the semiconductor industry, whose big West Coast factories have suffered badly in the latest downturn. Hynix, for example, closed a plant in Eugene, Ore., last year, resulting in the loss of about 1,100 jobs.
Mr. Owens heard on National Public Radio that SolarWorld was coming to Oregon and decided to jump after seven years at a wafer manufacturer in Portland. “I saw this as an opportunity to get into something that was growing,” he recalls. “Glad I did.”
Even as SolarWorld charges ahead, adding new equipment and breaking ground for its factory expansion, there are daily reminders of the challenges ahead. The company’s share price has declined more than 30 percent in two years, to 21.05 euros ($27.80), largely because of slowing demand and a growing number of manufacturers.
Asia has also become a manufacturing hub for solar power, and many panels from China have entered the market, although the recession has forced some companies to cut back. Suntech Power, a leading Chinese manufacturer, is now using just 55 percent of its factories’ capacity, though it, too, is looking for factory space in the United States for the long term.
Like the rest of the industry, SolarWorld is also trying to adjust to the decline in panel prices, which are likely to keep falling into the summer, given the oversupply and the continuing credit crisis.
Mr. Klebensberger tries to put a positive spin on this, noting that the first quarter — whose results are due in a few weeks — is always relatively weak because Europeans avoid installing panels during the winter.
For all of last year, the company’s sales grew at a heady 31 percent. But the pace of growth in the fourth quarter slowed considerably.
Industrywide installations in the first quarter in California, the largest market in the United States, remain robust. Installers there are wary, however. They say demand dried up in the last six months because companies lack financing and homeowners are more worried about their mortgages than sinking $25,000 or more into making electricity on their roof.
Analysts say the first-quarter figures in California may have had a boost from projects that were already in the pipeline and that future numbers may be less robust. A year ago, installers say, they were calling manufacturers to ask for panels; now the situation is reversed, with manufacturers making sales calls.
In the meantime, the competition among manufacturers is likely to intensify. Even as some of the weaker solar companies resort to layoffs, a number of big names — including Schott, First Solar, SunPower and Sharp — are building, expanding or looking to build manufacturing plants in the United States. Sanyo, the Japanese electronics company, is building a solar wafer factory in Salem, Oregon’s capital, that is to begin production this fall.
Mr. Klebensberger relishes the competition and the potential boost it can give the American economy. Solar energy can provide jobs and energy security, he says, “so it’s a way out of the crisis.”
solar energy
From magnifying glasses to steam engines, scientists through the centuries have found innovative ways to harness the power of the sun. Converting more solar power into electricity is high on the political agenda in many countries, amid the push to find domestic energy sources that are less polluting than fossil fuels.
Despite rapid growth in recent years, solar power accounts for less than 1 percent of United States electricity use. Solar power is more entrenched in European countries such as Spain and Germany, which have promoted its development with strong incentives called feed-in tariffs,which require electric utilities to buy solar power at a high, fixed price. In the United States, California is by far the leading solar state.
There are several ways to use the sun’s power to generate electricity. One of the most promising is called concentrating solar power. This involves using mirrors to reflect and focus the sun’s rays, providing heat, which in turn helps power a generator. Another is photovoltaic panels, such as the displays on the rooftops of homes and office buildings (some of these displays, especially in California, have recently experienced problems with theft).
Despite rapid growth in recent years, solar power accounts for less than 1 percent of United States electricity use. Solar power is more entrenched in European countries such as Spain and Germany, which have promoted its development with strong incentives called feed-in tariffs,which require electric utilities to buy solar power at a high, fixed price. In the United States, California is by far the leading solar state.
There are several ways to use the sun’s power to generate electricity. One of the most promising is called concentrating solar power. This involves using mirrors to reflect and focus the sun’s rays, providing heat, which in turn helps power a generator. Another is photovoltaic panels, such as the displays on the rooftops of homes and office buildings (some of these displays, especially in California, have recently experienced problems with theft).
Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomouslyImpressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.
Their concern is that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences.
As examples, the scientists pointed to a number of technologies as diverse as experimental medical systems that interact with patients to simulate empathy, and computer worms and viruses that defy extermination and could thus be said to have reached a “cockroach” stage of machine intelligence.
While the computer scientists agreed that we are a long way from Hal, the computer that took over the spaceship in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” they said there was legitimate concern that technological progress would transform the work force by destroying a widening range of jobs, as well as force humans to learn to live with machines that increasingly copy human behaviors.
The researchers — leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers and roboticists who met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on Monterey Bay in California — generally discounted the possibility of highly centralized superintelligences and the idea that intelligence might spring spontaneously from the Internet. But they agreed that robots that can kill autonomously are either already here or will be soon.
They focused particular attention on the specter that criminals could exploit artificial intelligence systems as soon as they were developed. What could a criminal do with a speech synthesis system that could masquerade as a human being? What happens if artificial intelligence technology is used to mine personal information from smart phones?
The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world.
A report from the conference, which took place in private on Feb. 25, is to be issued later this year. Some attendees discussed the meeting for the first time with other scientists this month and in interviews.
The conference was organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and in choosing Asilomar for the discussions, the group purposefully evoked a landmark event in the history of science. In 1975, the world’s leading biologists also met at Asilomar to discuss the new ability to reshape life by swapping genetic material among organisms. Concerned about possible biohazards and ethical questions, scientists had halted certain experiments. The conference led to guidelines for recombinant DNA research, enabling experimentation to continue.
The meeting on the future of artificial intelligence was organized by Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who is now president of the association.
Dr. Horvitz said he believed computer scientists must respond to the notions of superintelligent machines and artificial intelligence systems run amok.
The idea of an “intelligence explosion” in which smart machines would design even more intelligent machines was proposed by the mathematician I. J. Good in 1965. Later, in lectures and science fiction novels, the computer scientist Vernor Vinge popularized the notion of a moment when humans will create smarter-than-human machines, causing such rapid change that the “human era will be ended.” He called this shift the Singularity.
This vision, embraced in movies and literature, is seen as plausible and unnerving by some scientists like William Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Other technologists, notably Raymond Kurzweil, have extolled the coming of ultrasmart machines, saying they will offer huge advances in life extension and wealth creation.
“Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.”
The Kurzweil version of technological utopia has captured imaginations in Silicon Valley. This summer an organization called the Singularity University began offering courses to prepare a “cadre” to shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications.
“My sense was that sooner or later we would have to make some sort of statement or assessment, given the rising voice of the technorati and people very concerned about the rise of intelligent machines,” Dr. Horvitz said.
The A.A.A.I. report will try to assess the possibility of “the loss of human control of computer-based intelligences.” It will also grapple, Dr. Horvitz said, with socioeconomic, legal and ethical issues, as well as probable changes in human-computer relationships. How would it be, for example, to relate to a machine that is as intelligent as your spouse?
Dr. Horvitz said the panel was looking for ways to guide research so that technology improved society rather than moved it toward a technological catastrophe. Some research might, for instance, be conducted in a high-security laboratory.
The meeting on artificial intelligence could be pivotal to the future of the field. Paul Berg, who was the organizer of the 1975 Asilomar meeting and received a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1980, said it was important for scientific communities to engage the public before alarm and opposition becomes unshakable.
“If you wait too long and the sides become entrenched like with G.M.O.,” he said, referring to genetically modified foods, “then it is very difficult. It’s too complex, and people talk right past each other.”
Tom Mitchell, a professor of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, said the February meeting had changed his thinking. “I went in very optimistic about the future of A.I. and thinking that Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil were far off in their predictions,” he said. But, he added, “The meeting made me want to be more outspoken about these issues and in particular be outspoken about the vast amounts of data collected about our personal lives.”
Despite his concerns, Dr. Horvitz said he was hopeful that artificial intelligence research would benefit humans, and perhaps even compensate for human failings. He recently demonstrated a voice-based system that he designed to ask patients about their symptoms and to respond with empathy. When a mother said her child was having diarrhea, the face on the screen said, “Oh no, sorry to hear that.”
A physician told him afterward that it was wonderful that the system responded to human emotion. “That’s a great idea,” Dr. Horvitz said he was told. “I have no time for that
Their concern is that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences.
As examples, the scientists pointed to a number of technologies as diverse as experimental medical systems that interact with patients to simulate empathy, and computer worms and viruses that defy extermination and could thus be said to have reached a “cockroach” stage of machine intelligence.
While the computer scientists agreed that we are a long way from Hal, the computer that took over the spaceship in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” they said there was legitimate concern that technological progress would transform the work force by destroying a widening range of jobs, as well as force humans to learn to live with machines that increasingly copy human behaviors.
The researchers — leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers and roboticists who met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on Monterey Bay in California — generally discounted the possibility of highly centralized superintelligences and the idea that intelligence might spring spontaneously from the Internet. But they agreed that robots that can kill autonomously are either already here or will be soon.
They focused particular attention on the specter that criminals could exploit artificial intelligence systems as soon as they were developed. What could a criminal do with a speech synthesis system that could masquerade as a human being? What happens if artificial intelligence technology is used to mine personal information from smart phones?
The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world.
A report from the conference, which took place in private on Feb. 25, is to be issued later this year. Some attendees discussed the meeting for the first time with other scientists this month and in interviews.
The conference was organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and in choosing Asilomar for the discussions, the group purposefully evoked a landmark event in the history of science. In 1975, the world’s leading biologists also met at Asilomar to discuss the new ability to reshape life by swapping genetic material among organisms. Concerned about possible biohazards and ethical questions, scientists had halted certain experiments. The conference led to guidelines for recombinant DNA research, enabling experimentation to continue.
The meeting on the future of artificial intelligence was organized by Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who is now president of the association.
Dr. Horvitz said he believed computer scientists must respond to the notions of superintelligent machines and artificial intelligence systems run amok.
The idea of an “intelligence explosion” in which smart machines would design even more intelligent machines was proposed by the mathematician I. J. Good in 1965. Later, in lectures and science fiction novels, the computer scientist Vernor Vinge popularized the notion of a moment when humans will create smarter-than-human machines, causing such rapid change that the “human era will be ended.” He called this shift the Singularity.
This vision, embraced in movies and literature, is seen as plausible and unnerving by some scientists like William Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Other technologists, notably Raymond Kurzweil, have extolled the coming of ultrasmart machines, saying they will offer huge advances in life extension and wealth creation.
“Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.”
The Kurzweil version of technological utopia has captured imaginations in Silicon Valley. This summer an organization called the Singularity University began offering courses to prepare a “cadre” to shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications.
“My sense was that sooner or later we would have to make some sort of statement or assessment, given the rising voice of the technorati and people very concerned about the rise of intelligent machines,” Dr. Horvitz said.
The A.A.A.I. report will try to assess the possibility of “the loss of human control of computer-based intelligences.” It will also grapple, Dr. Horvitz said, with socioeconomic, legal and ethical issues, as well as probable changes in human-computer relationships. How would it be, for example, to relate to a machine that is as intelligent as your spouse?
Dr. Horvitz said the panel was looking for ways to guide research so that technology improved society rather than moved it toward a technological catastrophe. Some research might, for instance, be conducted in a high-security laboratory.
The meeting on artificial intelligence could be pivotal to the future of the field. Paul Berg, who was the organizer of the 1975 Asilomar meeting and received a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1980, said it was important for scientific communities to engage the public before alarm and opposition becomes unshakable.
“If you wait too long and the sides become entrenched like with G.M.O.,” he said, referring to genetically modified foods, “then it is very difficult. It’s too complex, and people talk right past each other.”
Tom Mitchell, a professor of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, said the February meeting had changed his thinking. “I went in very optimistic about the future of A.I. and thinking that Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil were far off in their predictions,” he said. But, he added, “The meeting made me want to be more outspoken about these issues and in particular be outspoken about the vast amounts of data collected about our personal lives.”
Despite his concerns, Dr. Horvitz said he was hopeful that artificial intelligence research would benefit humans, and perhaps even compensate for human failings. He recently demonstrated a voice-based system that he designed to ask patients about their symptoms and to respond with empathy. When a mother said her child was having diarrhea, the face on the screen said, “Oh no, sorry to hear that.”
A physician told him afterward that it was wonderful that the system responded to human emotion. “That’s a great idea,” Dr. Horvitz said he was told. “I have no time for that
India stands firm on binding emissions limits
India stood firm Sunday against Western demands to accept binding limits on carbon emissions even as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed optimism about an eventual climate change deal to India's benefit.
"There is simply no case for the pressure that we — who have among the lowest emissions per capita — face to actually reduce emissions," India's minister of environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, told Clinton and her visiting delegation in a meeting.
"And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours," he added
U.S. officials had expected the discussions to focus more on cooperation in related areas of energy efficiency, green buildings and clean-burning fuels.
The minister distributed copies of his remarks to reporters in a gesture aimed at underlining India's tough stance. The comments showed the political sensitivity in India of one of the Obama administration's foreign policy priorities.
Clinton said Ramesh presented a "fair argument." But she said India's case "loses force" because the fast-growing country's absolute level of carbon emissions — as opposed to the per capita amount — is "going up and dramatically."
Later, at an agricultural research site in a farm field outside the capital, Clinton told reporters she is optimistic about getting a climate change deal that will satisfy India.
"This is part of a negotiation," she said. "It's part of a give-and-take and it's multilateral, which makes it even more complex. But until proven otherwise, I'm going to continue to speak out in favor of every country doing its part to deal with the challenge of global climate change."
Clinton planned talks on Monday with Indian government officials on other issues, including curbing the spread of nuclear weapons.
In an interview with the TV station NDTV, Clinton said she wants to discuss what she called India's more benign interpretation of Iran's intentions, particularly regarding Iran's disputed presidential election and its nuclear program. Clinton was pressed to say whether she is worried that India has a different view of Iran, which is seen by the U.S. as a supporter of terrorist groups, an obstacle to Mideast peace and a threat to build a nuclear bomb.
"I'm not concerned yet. I want to understand why it is and why it is held," she said, referring to India's view.
Clinton's trip to India, which began with a two-day visit to Mumbai, reflects a push by the Obama administration to keep U.S.-India relations on the improving path they have followed for more than a decade. For example, two-way trade has doubled since 2004.
The two sides are working out the details of agreements that would give U.S. companies exclusive rights to sell nuclear reactors to India and to facilitate U.S. defense sales. Clinton could sign agreements Monday on one or both, as well as announce a broadening of U.S.-Indian cooperation on education, agriculture and counterterrorism.
India is widely viewed as an indispensable partner on climate change, along with China and Brazil. Those three countries and others in the developing world argue that the industrial world produced most of the harmful gases in recent decades and should bear the costs of fixing the problem.
Concerns about environment, economyAt a joint news conference with Ramesh, Clinton said the U.S. understands India's determination to resist measures, as part of a proposed international treaty on climate change, that unduly would restrict its economic growth.
"No one wants to stop or undermine the economic growth that is necessary to lift millions out of poverty," she said, adding that the U.S. "will not do anything that would limit India's economic progress."
Accompanying Clinton to India was the special U.S. envoy for climate change, Todd Stern. He is coordinating administration efforts to negotiate a climate change treaty by December, when nations from around the world are to gather in Denmark to negotiate a successor to the 1997 pact that expires in 2012.
Click for related content
Read more news from around the world
Countries such as China and India — the next generation of big polluters — want the industrial countries to pledge to reduce their carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next decade before they promise any reductions of their own.
Stern told reporters that it's clear that the U.S. and other developed countries will be asked to accept absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from a specific baseline number, whereas India and other developing nations would be expected to accept a slowing of the upward trajectory on which their emissions are now headed. Details are to be negotiated.
Clinton said that devising a comprehensive and strategic approach for achieving a clean energy future is an important topic of her India visit.
"I am very confident the United States and India can devise a plan that will dramatically change the way we produce, consume and conserve energy and in the process spark an explosion of new investment and millions of jobs," she said, without elaborating.
"There is simply no case for the pressure that we — who have among the lowest emissions per capita — face to actually reduce emissions," India's minister of environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, told Clinton and her visiting delegation in a meeting.
"And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours," he added
U.S. officials had expected the discussions to focus more on cooperation in related areas of energy efficiency, green buildings and clean-burning fuels.
The minister distributed copies of his remarks to reporters in a gesture aimed at underlining India's tough stance. The comments showed the political sensitivity in India of one of the Obama administration's foreign policy priorities.
Clinton said Ramesh presented a "fair argument." But she said India's case "loses force" because the fast-growing country's absolute level of carbon emissions — as opposed to the per capita amount — is "going up and dramatically."
Later, at an agricultural research site in a farm field outside the capital, Clinton told reporters she is optimistic about getting a climate change deal that will satisfy India.
"This is part of a negotiation," she said. "It's part of a give-and-take and it's multilateral, which makes it even more complex. But until proven otherwise, I'm going to continue to speak out in favor of every country doing its part to deal with the challenge of global climate change."
Clinton planned talks on Monday with Indian government officials on other issues, including curbing the spread of nuclear weapons.
In an interview with the TV station NDTV, Clinton said she wants to discuss what she called India's more benign interpretation of Iran's intentions, particularly regarding Iran's disputed presidential election and its nuclear program. Clinton was pressed to say whether she is worried that India has a different view of Iran, which is seen by the U.S. as a supporter of terrorist groups, an obstacle to Mideast peace and a threat to build a nuclear bomb.
"I'm not concerned yet. I want to understand why it is and why it is held," she said, referring to India's view.
Clinton's trip to India, which began with a two-day visit to Mumbai, reflects a push by the Obama administration to keep U.S.-India relations on the improving path they have followed for more than a decade. For example, two-way trade has doubled since 2004.
The two sides are working out the details of agreements that would give U.S. companies exclusive rights to sell nuclear reactors to India and to facilitate U.S. defense sales. Clinton could sign agreements Monday on one or both, as well as announce a broadening of U.S.-Indian cooperation on education, agriculture and counterterrorism.
India is widely viewed as an indispensable partner on climate change, along with China and Brazil. Those three countries and others in the developing world argue that the industrial world produced most of the harmful gases in recent decades and should bear the costs of fixing the problem.
Concerns about environment, economyAt a joint news conference with Ramesh, Clinton said the U.S. understands India's determination to resist measures, as part of a proposed international treaty on climate change, that unduly would restrict its economic growth.
"No one wants to stop or undermine the economic growth that is necessary to lift millions out of poverty," she said, adding that the U.S. "will not do anything that would limit India's economic progress."
Accompanying Clinton to India was the special U.S. envoy for climate change, Todd Stern. He is coordinating administration efforts to negotiate a climate change treaty by December, when nations from around the world are to gather in Denmark to negotiate a successor to the 1997 pact that expires in 2012.
Click for related content
Read more news from around the world
Countries such as China and India — the next generation of big polluters — want the industrial countries to pledge to reduce their carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next decade before they promise any reductions of their own.
Stern told reporters that it's clear that the U.S. and other developed countries will be asked to accept absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from a specific baseline number, whereas India and other developing nations would be expected to accept a slowing of the upward trajectory on which their emissions are now headed. Details are to be negotiated.
Clinton said that devising a comprehensive and strategic approach for achieving a clean energy future is an important topic of her India visit.
"I am very confident the United States and India can devise a plan that will dramatically change the way we produce, consume and conserve energy and in the process spark an explosion of new investment and millions of jobs," she said, without elaborating.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The U.S.'s coming around on climate change was supposed to be good news. Instead, it's trouble
Be careful what you wish for. For years, much of the world has been bashing America for refusing to cooperate in the fight against climate change. Now that President Barack Obama has pledged American leadership in cutting greenhouse-gas emissions—and as a far-reaching package of green legislation begins to wind its way through the U.S. Congress—relief is giving way to worry. In recent weeks European, Indian and Chinese officials have warned that the result of America's long-awaited change of mind might not be cooperation but conflict, and possibly the world's first green trade war.
That's because as Washington debates how to regulate emissions, a powerful coalition of energy-intensive industries, labor unions and Rust Belt state legislators is clamoring for protection from imports. They argue that the new cap-and-trade system envisioned by Obama and congressional leaders, which will require major polluters to acquire permits for the right to emit CO2, will put them at a competitive disadvantage against competitors based in countries that don't have similar carbon-pricing schemes. In March Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, said the U.S. is prepared to use a border tax on imports as a weapon to force countries like China to limit their own emissions, triggering a warning by Su Wei, China's chief climate negotiator, that this would lead to retaliatory measures. India has since warned the West not to engage in "green protectionism."
So far, the threats have been limited to words, but that may soon change. Introduced in Congress on April 1, America's proposed scheme is loosely based on Europe's, which gives homegrown energy-intensive industries like steel, aluminum and cement generous free allowances of pollution permits, in effect grandfathering them into the new system. The president would have the authority to impose "border adjustments" only if U.S. companies were determined to be at a competitive disadvantage after a five-year trial period. But with the American debate over climate change increasingly driven by worries over jobs and competitiveness, some form of protection seems increasingly likely. In Europe, politicians have called for EU trade sanctions against both China and the U.S. if they don't agree to cut emissions.
Because they already regulate emissions, the Europeans would likely be exempt from any U.S. carbon tariffs, which appear squarely aimed at China.
The biggest victim of a confrontation, however, would be the environment that U.S. legislators are purporting to save. China is just beginning to get serious about its own environmental record, and as a member of the G20 seems finally to be taking its first baby steps toward a more involved and constructive international role. The global climate regime that the world's biggest polluters will try to hammer out at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December will not work without major developing-world emitters like China onboard. A nasty trade fight with the United States would make cooperation by Beijing even less likely, says Benjamin Görlach, emissions expert at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin.
Not only does the debate over imports threaten to obscure the original environmental-policy goals, it also obscures the facts. The greatest share of carbon-intensive imports reaches the U.S. not from China but from heavily regulated Europe. What's more, a number of studies have found the effects on industrial competitiveness to be minimal. Among other things, they found that the cost of complying with environmental regulation plays little to no role when companies decide where to locate—access to local markets is by far the most important factor, followed by labor costs. In some cases, such as Germany's €160 billion chemical industry, efficiency improvements prodded by environmental regulation have even helped make the industry more competitive, not less. Even the Chinese case is anything but clear. China itself may be polluted, but its exports tend to come from modern, efficient plants, and the country already has higher efficiency standards for vehicles and appliances than the U.S., leading a Chinese official to remark at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington last year that it may be China that should slap carbon tariffs on U.S. products, not the other way around. The trouble now is that the debate is driven less and less by environmental concerns and is turning into one defined by longstanding domestic U.S. worries that cheap Chinese goods will continue to flood the U.S., take jobs and hurt companies. So far in this downturn, the protectionists have been held in check by fears of repeating the mistakes of the 1930s, when a global tariff war plunged the world into depression. Under the cover of green, they could yet have their day.
That's because as Washington debates how to regulate emissions, a powerful coalition of energy-intensive industries, labor unions and Rust Belt state legislators is clamoring for protection from imports. They argue that the new cap-and-trade system envisioned by Obama and congressional leaders, which will require major polluters to acquire permits for the right to emit CO2, will put them at a competitive disadvantage against competitors based in countries that don't have similar carbon-pricing schemes. In March Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, said the U.S. is prepared to use a border tax on imports as a weapon to force countries like China to limit their own emissions, triggering a warning by Su Wei, China's chief climate negotiator, that this would lead to retaliatory measures. India has since warned the West not to engage in "green protectionism."
So far, the threats have been limited to words, but that may soon change. Introduced in Congress on April 1, America's proposed scheme is loosely based on Europe's, which gives homegrown energy-intensive industries like steel, aluminum and cement generous free allowances of pollution permits, in effect grandfathering them into the new system. The president would have the authority to impose "border adjustments" only if U.S. companies were determined to be at a competitive disadvantage after a five-year trial period. But with the American debate over climate change increasingly driven by worries over jobs and competitiveness, some form of protection seems increasingly likely. In Europe, politicians have called for EU trade sanctions against both China and the U.S. if they don't agree to cut emissions.
Because they already regulate emissions, the Europeans would likely be exempt from any U.S. carbon tariffs, which appear squarely aimed at China.
The biggest victim of a confrontation, however, would be the environment that U.S. legislators are purporting to save. China is just beginning to get serious about its own environmental record, and as a member of the G20 seems finally to be taking its first baby steps toward a more involved and constructive international role. The global climate regime that the world's biggest polluters will try to hammer out at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December will not work without major developing-world emitters like China onboard. A nasty trade fight with the United States would make cooperation by Beijing even less likely, says Benjamin Görlach, emissions expert at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin.
Not only does the debate over imports threaten to obscure the original environmental-policy goals, it also obscures the facts. The greatest share of carbon-intensive imports reaches the U.S. not from China but from heavily regulated Europe. What's more, a number of studies have found the effects on industrial competitiveness to be minimal. Among other things, they found that the cost of complying with environmental regulation plays little to no role when companies decide where to locate—access to local markets is by far the most important factor, followed by labor costs. In some cases, such as Germany's €160 billion chemical industry, efficiency improvements prodded by environmental regulation have even helped make the industry more competitive, not less. Even the Chinese case is anything but clear. China itself may be polluted, but its exports tend to come from modern, efficient plants, and the country already has higher efficiency standards for vehicles and appliances than the U.S., leading a Chinese official to remark at a Brookings Institution conference in Washington last year that it may be China that should slap carbon tariffs on U.S. products, not the other way around. The trouble now is that the debate is driven less and less by environmental concerns and is turning into one defined by longstanding domestic U.S. worries that cheap Chinese goods will continue to flood the U.S., take jobs and hurt companies. So far in this downturn, the protectionists have been held in check by fears of repeating the mistakes of the 1930s, when a global tariff war plunged the world into depression. Under the cover of green, they could yet have their day.
Overshadowed by the economic headlines, serious climate trouble looms ahead
The past year will be remembered for the global financial crisis. But next year will be no less dangerous, albeit for a different reason. Lost among the economic headlines is an even more important fact: emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, rose by an unexpected 3 percent in 2007.
This revelation means that the 50 percent targets for carbon cuts set by Europe and elsewhere by 2050 are already out of date. Scientists now say reductions of 60 to 80 percent will be needed to avoid a catastrophe.
There is other bad news. Everyone knows about the accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice. Now recent U.N. reports offer evidence of less visible but equally troubling changes. Our planet's species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate, according to the U.N. Environment Program. Massive "dead zones" are multiplying in the oceans as pollutants are absorbed, killing off coral reefs and decimating fisheries. Incidents of extreme weather, such as the hurricanes that devastated Haiti and Myanmar, have grown more frequent. Insurers predict that 2008 will set yet another record for economic losses. Meanwhile, U.N. refugee agencies believe that as many as 50 million people will be displaced by climate-related disasters by 2010, and the figure could hit 200 million by 2050.
All this points to a stark truth: though we can overcome the financial shocks of 2008, we will not overcome the climate-change crisis unless we act fast. This means 2009 will be the critical year for the critical challenge of our era.
In early December, world leaders gathered in Poznan, Poland, to chart a shared vision for the future. Then in another year comes a long-awaited summit in Copenhagen, where nations hope to reach a comprehensive new deal on climate change. Getting there will require a clear plan with specific goals within an agreed institutional architecture; a serious commitment to green-technology transfers; and, above all, a readiness by both developing and developed nations to do their part.
Nothing can happen without global leadership and unity of purpose. So far, however, we have fallen short. Narrow differences paralyze us. The United States and other developed nations insist that no accord is possible without the participation of rising powers such as China, India and Brazil. Yet many in the developing world blame the industrialized nations for creating the problem—and insist that they should therefore solve it.
This impasse is a prescription for disaster. To break it means accepting two realities. First: the world is waiting for the United States to lead, and rightly so. The United States remains among the world's most vibrant, entrepreneurial economies. Thanks in part to rising fuel prices, U.S. capital has flooded into "green" energy ventures in recent years. Slowing growth may affect this trend, but won't reverse it. And the new U.S. administration will have climate change high on its agenda.
The second reality is no less obvious: there can be no progress unless the newly developed nations also play a key role. China has surpassed the United States as the largest greenhouse-gas emitter. India will likely soon become the third-largest emitter. Fortunately, many of these nations have already begun moving to combat climate change. China has set national goals for reducing energy use by 2010. It has become one of the world's largest producers of wind power, and it leads in the development of solar energy. Brazil has already built one of the world's cleanest economies, with more than 80 percent of its electricity coming from hydropower, and has become a pioneer in biofuels and hybrid transportation. Meanwhile, Mexico has put more than 1.5 million people to work better managing its forests as a crucial buffer against future climate shocks.
True, the most advanced developing nations have not yet fully shouldered their responsibilities. Yet neither have developed nations. Both things must change before it is too late. Facing this great collective challenge, world leaders cannot wait for others to move. We must act together with the same urgency shown in the financial crisis
Looking forward to Copenhagen, we should remember the proverbial truth that many roads lead to Rome. Some experts advocate strict emissions limits. Others favor voluntary targets. Still others debate the pros and cons of "cap and trade" carbon markets versus taxes and national conservation regulation. In truth, there is no one solution to climate change. We need all of the above. The important thing is to act, and to act now. When it comes to climate change, it's make-or-break time.
This revelation means that the 50 percent targets for carbon cuts set by Europe and elsewhere by 2050 are already out of date. Scientists now say reductions of 60 to 80 percent will be needed to avoid a catastrophe.
There is other bad news. Everyone knows about the accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice. Now recent U.N. reports offer evidence of less visible but equally troubling changes. Our planet's species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate, according to the U.N. Environment Program. Massive "dead zones" are multiplying in the oceans as pollutants are absorbed, killing off coral reefs and decimating fisheries. Incidents of extreme weather, such as the hurricanes that devastated Haiti and Myanmar, have grown more frequent. Insurers predict that 2008 will set yet another record for economic losses. Meanwhile, U.N. refugee agencies believe that as many as 50 million people will be displaced by climate-related disasters by 2010, and the figure could hit 200 million by 2050.
All this points to a stark truth: though we can overcome the financial shocks of 2008, we will not overcome the climate-change crisis unless we act fast. This means 2009 will be the critical year for the critical challenge of our era.
In early December, world leaders gathered in Poznan, Poland, to chart a shared vision for the future. Then in another year comes a long-awaited summit in Copenhagen, where nations hope to reach a comprehensive new deal on climate change. Getting there will require a clear plan with specific goals within an agreed institutional architecture; a serious commitment to green-technology transfers; and, above all, a readiness by both developing and developed nations to do their part.
Nothing can happen without global leadership and unity of purpose. So far, however, we have fallen short. Narrow differences paralyze us. The United States and other developed nations insist that no accord is possible without the participation of rising powers such as China, India and Brazil. Yet many in the developing world blame the industrialized nations for creating the problem—and insist that they should therefore solve it.
This impasse is a prescription for disaster. To break it means accepting two realities. First: the world is waiting for the United States to lead, and rightly so. The United States remains among the world's most vibrant, entrepreneurial economies. Thanks in part to rising fuel prices, U.S. capital has flooded into "green" energy ventures in recent years. Slowing growth may affect this trend, but won't reverse it. And the new U.S. administration will have climate change high on its agenda.
The second reality is no less obvious: there can be no progress unless the newly developed nations also play a key role. China has surpassed the United States as the largest greenhouse-gas emitter. India will likely soon become the third-largest emitter. Fortunately, many of these nations have already begun moving to combat climate change. China has set national goals for reducing energy use by 2010. It has become one of the world's largest producers of wind power, and it leads in the development of solar energy. Brazil has already built one of the world's cleanest economies, with more than 80 percent of its electricity coming from hydropower, and has become a pioneer in biofuels and hybrid transportation. Meanwhile, Mexico has put more than 1.5 million people to work better managing its forests as a crucial buffer against future climate shocks.
True, the most advanced developing nations have not yet fully shouldered their responsibilities. Yet neither have developed nations. Both things must change before it is too late. Facing this great collective challenge, world leaders cannot wait for others to move. We must act together with the same urgency shown in the financial crisis
Looking forward to Copenhagen, we should remember the proverbial truth that many roads lead to Rome. Some experts advocate strict emissions limits. Others favor voluntary targets. Still others debate the pros and cons of "cap and trade" carbon markets versus taxes and national conservation regulation. In truth, there is no one solution to climate change. We need all of the above. The important thing is to act, and to act now. When it comes to climate change, it's make-or-break time.
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