Numbers Say Now Is No Time to Wait on Climate Change

Barack Obama’s honeymoon period has already come to an end. Between concerns about the cost and content of the stimulus package and the administration’s bad habit of picking nominees who failed to pay their taxes, the glow that surrounded the new president has dimmed.

Add in the other major programs that Obama would like to become law, along with the likely difficulty of getting agreement on a cap and trade program, and it’s possible to imagine quite a delay before any significant measures are enacted to address climate change.

Some recent numbers argue that we have no time to waste.

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group made up of both large corporations and environmental groups, recently called for a 42 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency projects that U.S. electricity consumption will rise from 3.9 billion kwh in 2007 to 4.9 billion kwh by 2030.

Since electricity production accounts for a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions, an increase in electricity consumption will be accompanied by an increase in emissions. And the higher that consumption goes, the harder it will be to reach greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The reality is that, as was the case with CFCs in the past, only government action will have the force to prompt the kind of change in building energy use that will enable the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. That’s true even though, for buildings, at least, efficiency improvements are investments with solid, if sometimes long-term, returns.

Here’s hoping the Obama administration doesn’t put climate change too far down the priority list.