Globalizing the Energy Revolution
How to Really Win the Clean-Energy Race
Article Summary and Author Biography
Clean-energy technology is expensive and the United States is spending far too little on developing it. The U.S. government must do more to promote cross-border innovation and protect intellectual property rights.
MICHAEL LEVI is Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment, ELIZABETH C. ECONOMY is Senior Fellow for Asia Studies, SHANNON O'NEIL is Fellow for Latin America Studies, and ADAM SEGAL is Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Essay
The United States can curb its own emissions and encourage energy efficiency and the development of clean-energy technology worldwide by rethinking carbon regimes.
Essay
China's environmental woes are mounting, and the country is fast becoming one of the leading polluters in the world. The situation continues to deteriorate because even when Beijing sets ambitious targets to protect the environment, local officials generally ignore them, preferring to concentrate on further advancing economic growth. Really improving the environment in China will require revolutionary bottom-up political and economic reforms.
The world faces a daunting array of energy challenges. Oil remains indispensable to the global economy, but it is increasingly produced in places that present big commercial, environmental, and geopolitical risks; greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere; and the odds that the world will face catastrophic climate change are increasing. These problems will only worsen as global demand for energy rises.
Environmental advocates and security hawks have been demanding for decades that governments solve these problems by mandating or incentivizing much greater use of the many alternative energy sources that already exist. The political reality, however, is that none of this will happen at the necessary scale and pace unless deploying clean energy becomes less financially risky and less expensive than it currently is. This is particularly true in the developing world.
A massive drive to develop cheaper clean-energy solutions is necessary. Indeed, many claim that it has already begun -- just not in the United States. They warn that the United States is losing a generation-defining clean-energy race to China and the other big emerging economies.
They are right that the United States is dangerously neglecting clean-energy innovation. But an energy agenda built on fears of a clean-energy race could quickly backfire. Technology advances most rapidly when researchers, firms, and governments build on one another's successes. When clean-energy investment is seen as a zero-sum game aimed primarily at boosting national competitiveness, however, states often erect barriers. They pursue trade and industrial policies that deter foreigners from participating in the clean-energy sectors of their economies, rather than adopting approaches that accelerate cross-border cooperation. This slows down the very innovation that they are trying to promote at home and simultaneously stifles innovation abroad.
To be sure, clean-energy innovation alone will not deliver the energy transformation the world needs. It can drive down the cost of clean energy and narrow the price gap between clean and dirty sources, but it is unlikely to make clean energy consistently cheaper than fossil fuels anytime soon. Government policies will still need to tip the balance, through regulations and incentives that promote the adoption of alternatives to fossil fuels.
CLEAN BUT COSTLY
This is a premium article
You must be a logged in Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you wish to continue reading this article please subscribe , or activate your online account to get full online access.
