Peterson: The climate's sunny hope and threatening skies
I have lived in three Mediterranean countries - Tunisia, Malta and Cyprus - and they have one particular thing in common. Any urban area will see limestone block apartment buildings with flat roofs and a forest of solar panels and water tanks.
It is not aesthetically attractive, but it is very functional. The sun heats most of the water in these countries. In makes sense. Cyprus has something like 320 sunny days a year.
A 2016 federal study estimated that if all the buildings suitable for solar panels in the U.S. were retrofitted, the solar roofs would produce about 40 percent of the country's electricity needs. In sunny California it would be more than 70 percent. Most solar panels today are made in China.
In recent days, I have read a piece about accelerating efforts to solve the technical issues to achieve commercial nuclear fusion. Fusion, as opposed to the fission we now use, would produce immense amounts of electricity without the problems of nuclear waste and weapons proliferation. The featured companies were in Britain and France.
And the other night, PBS featured a story out of Purdue about the development of a whiter-than-white paint that if painted on roofs and other surfaces could conserve large amounts of energy. The grad student who shepherded the study quipped "my thesis was literally watching paint dry."
As 20,000 diplomats, researchers, and activists descend on Glasgow for COP (Conference of the Parties) 26 at the end of this month, there will be the hope that the world's nations can find a way to prevent the planet from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Most certainly, innovative technologies will be part of the solution.
Glasgow occurs at a particularly perilous moment. The pandemic is still playing havoc with economies and that is especially true of energy markets, as anyone who has visited a gas station can attest. Europeans will face significantly higher heating bills and a cold winter is forecast. China has had rolling blackouts.
As such, the politics of the moment are fraught. President Joe Biden is trying to push through an ambitious climate agenda as part of his Build Back Better infrastructure bills, but is facing opposition from powerful lobbies and Sen. Joe Manchin, whose personal financial and political involvement in West Virginia coal will have to be overcome.
America is back in the Paris (COP 21) climate accord after a four-year hiatus, but progress toward the pledges made in 2015 has been glacial, even as glaciers recede. Poorer countries, where economic growth trumps environmental rectitude, still clamor for richer countries to fund their transition to cleaner energy but actual dollars/euros/pounds are scarce.
Getting where scientists tell us we have to go will cost trillions and no one expects that squabbling governments will unite to get us there. Private investors will not invest in poorer countries because of corruption and instability, but some well-placed loan guarantees from multilateral lending institutions - bolstered by the richer countries - could leverage that private investment.
The U.S. government won't mandate every house get a solar roof, but it can fund research, create tax incentives, and invest in a more efficient grid to hasten the transition to a cleaner energy future. It also can put its thumb on the scale so that the best technologies and new industries have a chance to be American.
No one should underestimate the importance of American leadership at Glasgow. The Paris Accord would not have happened without the aggressive push provided by President Barack Obama in face-to-face encounters. President Biden's hand would be greatly strengthened if the two infrastructure bills being torturously debated and assembled in the Congress were to pass in the coming days. There is much work to be done.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.