Belfer Center Hosts Al Gore 'Solutions Summit' to Design Carbon-free Future

Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center hosted former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore and 30 of the United States' top energy and climate experts for a "Solutions Summit" on the climate challenge on October 21-22, 2008. The "Solutions Summit" recipe is one developed by Vice President Gore following a series of Belfer Center brainstorming events in 2005 and 2006 organized by Belfer Center Director Graham Allison and Gore.

The purpose of the session was to brainstorm concrete solutions to the climate challenge. As a starting point, the Solutions Summit used the challenge issued in July 2008 by Al Gore in his "Generational Challenge to Repower America" -- to produce one hundred percent of America's electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within ten years.

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"There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger....This is such a moment," Gore said on July 17, 2008 when he made his "repower America" challenge. "Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for mankind."

The Summit discussion attempted to generate practical steps toward the design and implementation of initiatives that could achieve this objective, or come as close to it as possible. While the Solutions Summit was off the record, a number of participants have proposed possible solutions developed in previous research and analysis. Among these:

Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of the Belfer Center's Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, has noted that the United States and China are the two countries with the unique ability to make or break the climate change threat. If either one fails to effectively manage its greenhouse gas emissions during this century, she says, it will be almost impossible to substantially reduce the threat of climate change given the size of their aggregate emissions. The United States needs to start slowing, stopping, and reversing its own emissions, Gallagher says, and "will almost certainly" have to help China reduce its emissions as well. Gallagher has argued that placing a price on CO2 emissions through a carbon tax or cap-and-trade regime is the most important first step for the United States. She believes this price should gradually escalate over time to provide stable and increasing incentive for emission reductions.

William Hogan, Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy and research director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group (HEPG), believes a key challenge for electricity market design and regulation is to support efficient investment in infrastructure. Outside the organized markets, he has said, "FERC faces the continuing challenge of implementing and enforcing the principles of open access, which would require a change in institutions and rules similar to the organized markets covered by Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs)." Inside the organized markets, rules and regulatory policies that promote investment without unintentionally creating new market failures are still needed. Hogan believes that improved scarcity pricing and a hybrid framework for transmission investment are two workable solutions that would enable much needed long-term investment in infrastructure.

John P. Holdren, director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, argues that the U.S. - which has the largest economy, uses the most energy (and oil), and makes the largest cumulative contribution to CO2 in the atmosphere - must lead the world in energy-technology innovation. Holdren has noted that current U.S. federal government investments in energy research, development, and demonstration are about the same as they were 25 years ago. He says the mismatch between current levels of effort in energy-technology innovation and the need for improved technologies is not fixing itself and must be corrected with policy. In addition, Holdren proposes that the U.S. pass as soon as possible a mandatory economy-wide GHG emissions reduction policy.

Henry Lee, director of the Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, says that reducing oil imports requires more efficient modes of moving goods and people, alternative fuels, and reductions in vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Reduction in VMT will be the greatest challenge, he believes. To improve the odds, Lee has said, "the marketplace itself must be changed and "this requires pricing carbon and oil imports at levels that will stimulate changes in both supply and demand." If the government decides to make this commitment, Lee says, it must invest in insuring that the social, environmental, and economic costs are manageable.

John Podesta, president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress and former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, recommends a "green economic recovery program" developed by his Center that will "strengthen the U.S. economy over the next two years and leave it in a better position for sustainable prosperity." The green program includes steps recommended in the Center for American Progress report "Capturing the Energy Opportunity: Creating a Low-Carbon Economy." This report lays out 10 steps to a low-carbon economy: Create an economy-wide greenhouse gas emission cap-and-trade program; Eliminate federal tax breaks and subsidies for oil and gas; Increase vehicle fuel economy; Increase production and availability of alternative low-carbon fuels; Invest in low-carbon transportation infrastructure; Improve efficiency in energy generation, transmission and consumption; Increase the production of renewable electricity; Use carbon capture-and-storage systems to capture and bury the carbon emissions from burning coal; Create a White House National Energy Council and make the federal government a low-carbon leader. Podesta believes these steps will create new jobs and new technologies and will restore the United States' global leadership in key 21st century industries.

Dan Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, believes an essential component of any carbon reduction strategy for the U.S. and the world is the demonstration and deployment of technologies to capture carbon dioxide from large stationary sources and store the waste CO2 in geological formations. Schrag's recommendation is that a high priority should be placed on accelerating installation of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) systems for at least 20 commercial-scale power plants around the country with different capture technologies, different storage strategies, and extensive monitoring efforts in order to learn what works and what does not. In addition, he believes that achieving carbon reduction goals will require that old, existing coal plants be shut down. However, he notes that a number of old coal plants are in locations that could become significant providers of wind and solar energy.

Vice President Gore concluded the Belfer Center Solutions Summit by urging individuals as well as Harvard and other universities to actively take part in solving the climate crisis. "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," Gore said in his July challenge and repeated at the summit. "And even more - if more should be required - the future of human civilization is at stake."