The Future of Energy and Climate Change

Today I attended a Roadmap for Managing Energy Security and Climate Change, a roll-out of the work the CSIS Energy and National Security Program and partners at the World Resources Institute have produced in the last year and a half. The team sought to stress the interdependence of energy security and climate change as pressing issues. Indeed, the very genesis of the project was interdisciplinary in nature, as the CSIS Energy and National Security Program came into the project from the energy security standpoint, while the World Resources Institute entered it from the climate change perspective.

Personally, I like weaving energy security and climate change together. They are absolutely codependent, and considering the implications of both is necessary before tackling either one. The presentation was thorough but remained very general. We are going to have to wait for the full report to be released online in mid-February until we can see and evaluate their specific policy recommendations. However, one participant at the conference raised the question of political will – despite the near obvious urgency of climate change and energy security, Americans seem averse at worst and wary at best to actually confronting these issues. In a recent Pew Poll, global warming finished dead last – 20th out of 20 – in terms of its importance as a top priority. The panelists seem to dismiss this gap of will referring to our dismal economic conditions (the Economy and Jobs finished first and second, respectively, in the poll), but I disagree. Americans listing “Moral Decline” and “Lobbyists” as more pressing issues than climate change suggests a troubling national ambivalence and perhaps underestimation of climate change and energy security.