According to Duke Energy's Jim Rogers, the
greenhouse gas conversation among world business leaders at
Davos last week took a turn much like the one Congress and
President Obama took this month: It's all about jobs.
"A reframing of the issue" is how
Rogers put it in an
interview with forbes.com. "If you transform the energy
sector, you stimulate the economy and you create jobs." And
reduce emissions. Reframing indeed. Changing the subject, from
climate change to jobs. Not a new element in the US
climate-energy debate, but now in a newly important place: the
driver's seat.
At Davos, while
Rogers
said there was discussion of climate change policy, it was not
one of the high-profile subjects on an agenda built on economic
worries of major proportions.
Senator Lindsey Graham talked about it for
a minute with the Washington Post's
Ruth Marcus at Davos, telling her he was optimistic about a
deal in Congress. And saying he's telling fellow Republicans
it's their best chance in a generation to get a good energy and
environment package, which will do them good with younger
voters.
Back to Rogers: There's more momentum than
people may have thought from the December international climate
meeting in Copenhagen, he said.
For one thing, it brought developed and developing countries
closer. Now, the world is looking to the
US, he said, and to
China, where Duke has
established memorandums of understanding with Chinese companies.
Businesses putting themselves in the picture, in "a ladder of
cooperation," could embolden governments to work together,
Rogers suggested.
Obama is reminding lawmakers that
China is forging ahead on renewable energy,
and that they really wouldn't want the
US to be squashed like a bug on
that front. Coincidentally, The New York Times put it
on its front page Sunday: "China Leading Race to Make Clean
Energy." The
article notes, though, that an assembly line worker in a
Vestas wind turbine factory there makes $4,100 a year. Not much
is made of that, but it does make one think.
