While the stories themselves may not exactly be what you’d call “good news,” the timing of the stories may wind up as a nice touch of serendipity. That’s because they both hit the wire at almost exactly the same time – which allowed the two stories to augment each other’s importance. And because they appeal to ideological, practical and environmental hot buttons all at once, they’ve got nearly everyone thinking about the same thing: the future of energy.
First, the leaders at the G8 summit announced an agreement to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050. While it’s significant that this is the first time that G-8 leaders have actually discussed climate change and agreed to a reduction goal, and President Bush called the agreement “significant progress,” many laughed off the announcement as purely symbolic and really not significant at all. Why? Because the agreement isn’t legally binding, it’s probably not a big enough reduction to actually make an impact (according to many scientists and most environmentalists), and it still doesn’t include developing nations like China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa – countries that must be on board if any global emissions reduction agreement is to have any teeth and be even remotely effective.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that their predictions regarding 2009 electricity prices were a bit…off. Instead of a 3.6 percent increase as forecast in June, EIA is now saying we can likely expect a whopping 9.8 percent increase in electricity costs for 2009. The main reason for upping the prediction, they say, is the rising cost of natural gas used to generate electricity.
So while some facility executives are worrying about the huge electricity-bill-hike in 2009, others are worrying that they’re doing enough to combat climate change. And on the whole, it means almost everyone, for one reason or another, is trying to figure out how to wring energy out of their buildings. The news may be bad, but keeping the importance of efficiency in the forefront is always good.