The response to the credit crunch has demonstrated the vast sums of money governments can make available at low rates of interest when they believe it is required. Already governments have pledged over 2.5 trillion dollars of preferential debt or direct funding to be made available to the financial sector over the next two years. Furthermore, governments have taken direct control or gained significant influence over a number of major banks. This control should be used to channel and tie future investments to sustainable outcomes.

Greenpeace and many of our colleague groups are calling for a planetary rescue package to create jobs, rebuild the economy, and protect the climate for future generations. Many advocates have likened the approach to a “Green New Deal,” reminiscent of the programs President Franklin Roosevelt used to lift the economy out of the Great Depression.

It is conservatively estimated that such programs could create 4.1 million new jobs nationwide over the next few decades.
See: http://www.usmayors.org/pressreleases/uploads/GreenJobsRe...

This briefing outlines key policy measures capable of addressing the financial and environmental crises.

The Threat: Climate Risk is Greater Than Financial Risk

We are destroying our environmental capital. The World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern conservatively estimates that global warming now causes a drag on the global economy equal to 2 percent of its entire GDP. That number could hit 20 percent by 2050 if we do not act. Rising sea levels threaten to displace hundreds of millions of people before the end of the century. Forest destruction now costs the world economy at least $2 trillion annually. Droughts and forest fires are destroying the resources that underpin our food supply. We literally can’t afford not to act.

What Needs To Be Done

1. Increase research and development spending on clean energy and energy efficiency. A new Greenpeace and European Renewable Energy Council report shows that investment in clean power and energy efficiency worldwide would create a $360 billion a year industry, provide half of the world’s electricity, and slash $18 trillion in future fuel expenditures—all while protecting the climate.

Greenpeace’s global energy blueprint is available for download at:
www.greenpeace.org/energyrevolution

In October, the United States Conference of Mayors released a report laying out scenarios where a clean energy economy creates 4.1 million new jobs over the next few decades.

The mayors’ report can be downloaded at:
http://www.usmayors.org/pressreleases/uploads/GreenJobsRe...

Similarly, a report by the Center for American Progress estimates that investing $100 billion in the US green economy (just one-seventh the size of the Wall Street bailout) would create four times more jobs as the same amount invested in the oil industry and 300,000 more jobs than spending directed at household consumption.

The Center for American Progress’s green jobs report is available at:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/green_reco...)

University of Massachusetts table comparing job creation potential of polluting industries vs. the green economy:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/green-job-c...

2. Quitting coal. The biggest contributor to global warming pollution in the United States is coal-fired power plants. Greenpeace’s global energy blueprint shows by greatly increasing the amount of renewable energy in our system, using gas as a transitional fuel and introducing aggressive energy efficiency measures, we can start removing coal-fired power plants from the grid, shutting them down at the end of their working life. The blueprint lays out a step-by-step plan to retire 30 percent of the world’s power plants and replace them with a mix of clean energy technologies and efficiency programs by 2020.

See the full global clean energy blueprint at:
www.greenpeace.org/energyrevolution

3. To address global warming and invigorate the economy, taxpayers can no longer afford to underwrite the cost of dirty, dangerous and prohibitively expensive technologies, like nuclear and so-called “clean coal” (or carbon capture and storage). The nuclear and coal lobbies have been using global warming as an excuse to expand subsidies to their industries. But the latest analysis from numerous sources show nuclear and clean coal are too expensive, take too long to build, and face too many technical challenges to address global warming in time to avoid the worst impacts of the crisis. “Clean coal” in particular has never been shown to work on even a pilot-scale project.

See Greenpeace’s report, “False Hope: why carbon capture and storage won't save the planet”:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press/reports/fal...

See GAO Report: “CLIMATE CHANGE: Federal Actions Will Greatly Affect the Viability of Carbon Capture and Storage As a Key Mitigation Option”: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d081080.pdf

For a government analysis of the financial risk posed by nuclear power see a report by the Congressional Budget Office:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/42xx/doc4206/s14.pdf

4. Bring the nation’s power grid into the 21st century. Our power grid is outmoded, overloaded, and unable to provide the country the clean energy it needs now. A new report by the Apollo Alliance estimates that we lose six to nine percent of all the power that enters the grid at a cost of $20 billion annually. Congestion and blackouts cost ratepayers an additional $79 billion a year. The nation needs a modernized grid that efficiently incorporates a renewable power supply. Modernizing the power grid will not only make the economy more efficient, it will create hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs.

The full Apollo Alliance report is available at:
http://apolloalliance.org/apollo-14/the-full-report/

5. Create a “forests for climate” fund. Healthy and expansive forests serve as critical “carbon sinks” that turn carbon dioxide pollution into oxygen. Because it will be very difficult if not impossible for the U.S. to achieve the 34-46 percent reductions in pollution called for by the world’s leading scientists to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, we will need to couple aggressive cuts in domestic emissions with a financing program to help developing nations reduce deforestation and adopt clean energy. It is estimated that investments of $30-40 billion per year would nearly end deforestation by 2015. The fund would stimulate the economies of developing countries and ensure local populations do not respond to the downturn by accelerating the present overexploitation of their natural resources.

Greenpeace’s forests for climate plan is available at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press...

Making The Transition

Finally, in order to jumpstart a clean energy economy, the government must not only create an environment where technological innovation is rewarded, it must require polluters to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions. Today, polluters dump carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere free of charge while the public picks up the tab in the form of massive health costs, acid rain, and global warming impacts. To move toward a clean economy, the United States needs to implement a cap-and-trade system that requires polluters to pay for their emissions. Polluters must be required to buy 100 percent of all pollution permits at public auctions managed by open and transparent bodies. Greenpeace estimates that such an auction could generate $250 billion in the United States annually. The revenues must be used for public benefit, such as investments in renewable energy technology, grid development, public transport infrastructure, forest preservation, helping low and moderate income consumers with increased energy costs and helping vulnerable communities adapt to unavoidable climate impacts.

See Greenpeace USA’s full global warming platform at:
http://us.greenpeace.org/site/DocServer/PHS_platform.pdf?...