Save energy, make money

Accepts historical role but not responsibility! That is what the US climate envoy Todd Stern has to say about the official US stand on emissions. Nothing to feel ‘guilty’ about, says Stern! What else can one accept from political negotiations on a non-political, real crisis. And so, if the US as the biggest polluter till recently, has no regrets, why should any of the aspiring economies have, to continue doing the same?

On yet another contentious issue – that of financing poor nations to make the change – the US is again reluctant to donate. It believes health issues back home demand more money!

Though the EU just announced it would pledge $3.6 billion a year until 2012 to a short-term fund for poor countries, a draft agreement sent around Friday to the 192-nation conference set no firm figures on financing or on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The provisional text calls for emissions reductions by a wide range -- 50 percent to 95 percent by 2050 -- and asks rich countries to cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020, both against 1990 levels.

Todd Stern called the text "constructive" but said the section on helping developing nations lower their growth of CO2 was "unbalanced."

How can the rest of the world bring one nation to heel? Is there no way they can unite and force the issue on the US? Sounds amazing.

Not to say that America and Americans are all bad guys. Outside the ‘official’ circle, states and organizations and individuals are doing lots on the clean energy front.

Like the Leader program from companies. This is voluntary, of course. But there are strong incentives to make it work. Businesses that sign on get free technical support from government energy efficiency experts, better odds of saving money, and long-range strategic advantage.

The LEADER program is a new component of the existing and successful Save Energy Now initiative through which companies partner with DOE to conduct energy audits and assessments designed to identify the opportunities for energy and cost savings in the companies' operations.

Over 2,000 plants received energy assessments through Save Energy Now from 2006 to 2009. To date, those assessments have identified opportunities for $1.3 billion in identified cost savings, 119 trillion Btu of natural gas savings, and 11.2 million metric tons of CO2 savings.

That is something businesses the world over can surely pick a leaf from, government stands notwithstanding. Together, we may still be able to save the 40 odd island nations like Tuvalu from going down under water. What say? Perhaps it is time we ignored our governments and official stands and did what we believe is the right thing?