Energy Investors Seek Strong, Green Signal from Stimulus

Share This Article

Share This Article

By Mindy S. Lubber and Kevin Parker

As Congress nears final approval of an economic stimulus package, it should be clear on one point: Major investors want a bold, green plan that will spark clean energy investment and allow America to shape its financial and energy future.

The bottom line is that emerging clean-tech industries such as renewable energy and energy efficiency need the support of economic stimulus and other long-term government policies to thrive in the low-carbon global economy evolving in response to man-made climate change.

Investors need the reassurance that strong market signals from Congress will provide.

Even as other sectors of the economy sink, a green stimulus package will send a strong market signal to investors that clean energy will be a critical component of America’s future. For example, the wind industry has been hamstrung by tax credits that Congress has been renewing nearly every year. If a green stimulus package could extend the credits by five years or more, investors will be more confident placing funds in this burgeoning industry.

Green incentives that foster energy efficiency also will provide a boost to company bottom lines — and investor returns. A study last year by the McKinsey Global Institute, the economics research arm of McKinsey & Co., concludes that major investments in energy efficiency in the coming years could earn double-digit rates of return for investors while cutting energy demand growth by at least half. That boost would mean substantially lower energy bills for U.S. companies. It would also help this country avoid having to build hundreds of new and costly fossil-fuel power plants.

To be fully effective for investors, though, a green stimulus plan must be accompanied by comprehensive national legislation with mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Such a mechanism that leads to a price on carbon emissions will enable solar, wind and other alternative energies to become economically competitive with fossil fuels.

By providing these incentives, Congress could achieve two goals: assert America’s leadership in the emerging clean-tech global economy and create millions of jobs.

Other countries are already in the starting block of this great green race that will bring enormous financial rewards to its winners. Asia and Europe are home to the world’s largest solar and wind turbine manufacturers. Japan’s per capita consumption of energy is nearly half that of the United States. President Barack Obama understands this challenge, noting shortly before he was inaugurated, that other countries “are surging ahead of us, poised to take the lead in these new industries.”

Major investors also understand this issue. In January, the nation’s largest pension funds and dozens of other investors sent a letter to Congress calling for strong support of energy efficiency, renewable energy and other green provisions in the recovery bill.

So why are investors pushing for a green stimulus bill and mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions? Is it altruism or coldblooded capitalism? It’s a combination of both.

These investors recognize that the climate threat is real and that huge investments will be needed to reduce global warming pollution to the levels climate scientists — and President Obama — say are necessary to avert potentially severe climatic disruptions.

To have a chance of limiting average increases in global temperatures to 2 degrees in this century, a level that a growing number of scientists already consider unsafe, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a scientific body set up by the World Meteorological Organization and by the United Nations Environment Program — believes we’ll need to limit greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million. This limit will require reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by a range of 50% to 85% from 2000 emission levels by 2050.

The scale of the investments needed to achieve these reductions is eye-popping. The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2008 estimates around $9.3 trillion — or about $460 billion a year — needs to be invested globally in renewable energy, energy efficiency and other clean-energy technologies between 2010 and 2030 if we are to limit CO2 concentrations to 450 ppm.

While it’s encouraging that clean-tech investments have grown exponentially in recent years — peaking around $150 billion in 2007 alone, before last year’s financial credit meltdown — it’s only the tip of the iceberg of what is needed. And that’s where the economic stimulus bill and Congress come into play.

The nation is at a rare crossroads. With the right direction and boost from Washington, American businesses and investors can take a lead role in the global clean-energy future.

 

Mindy Lubber is president of Ceres, a coalition of institutional investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups, and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. Kevin Parker is global head of Deutsche Asset Management, New York, and a member of Deutsche Bank’s general executive committee.

About This Story

Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.

That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.

Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.

Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?

Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.

Thank you,

Share This Article