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We thought you might be interested in endorsing the Earth Day Clean Energy Agenda provided below.
The document is the product of four months of meetings among the Earth Day Network and the member groups of the Sustainable Energy Coalition and the Climate Action Network.
It outlines the goals of a national year-long campaign being launched on Earth Day (April 22, 1999) "to bring about a swift transition to clean, renewable energy sources and a giant leap forward in energy efficiency."
Organizations that are able to endorse and sign on to the document below in the next few days will be among the supporters listed when the campaign is formally unveiled and launched next week. However, if you can not respond that quickly, please consider signing on as soon thereafter as you can.
The document below actually consists of three separate statements: the first is a short statement of general goals; the second is a more detailed statement with specific policy proposals; the third is an even more detailed paper outlining numeric targets for renewables, energy efficiency, fossil fuels, and nuclear power in the coming years.
The first statement is followed by an endorsement form. If you wish to sign on the Earth Day Clean Energy Agenda, this form should be completed and returned to Earth Day Network.
Earth Day Clean Energy Agenda
As we approach the 21st century, Earth Day Network is launching a global campaign to bring about a swift transition to clean, renewable energy sources and a giant leap forward in energy efficiency.
Environmental realities compel us to evaluate our outdated energy path. Cutting edge technologies offer us a better choice. Public policies that promote these clean technologies and reward responsible energy choices are the bridge to our clean, renewable energy future.
Our use of highly polluting fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, causes air pollution, acid rain, cancer, and other damage to human health and the environment. Burning fossil fuels also threatens us with global warming, potentially the most serious environmental crisis our planet has ever faced.
We can reduce the threat of global warming, create jobs and protect our air and water by moving rapidly toward a clean, renewable energy economy. By cutting energy waste and investing in solar, wind, and other clean energy sources, we can meet our energy needs and achieve long-term energy security without risking our own health and the health of the Earth.
We support responsible public policies that:
1) Accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy sources.
2) Encourage and reward more efficient use of energy by utilities, vehicles, appliances, homes, buildings and businesses.
3) Level the playing field for renewable technologies by ending public policies that keep the price of outdated energy sources artificially low.
4) Demonstrate leadership in international efforts to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
Our organization endorses the Earth Day Clean Energy Agenda.
Org. Name:
Contact:
Address:
Tel:
Email:
Please return signed form, or a letter of endorsement, to:
Jan Thomas, Issues Director
Earth Day Network/Earth Day 2000
91 Marion Street
Seattle, WA 98104
Earth Day Clean Energy Agenda: Highlights
1. Accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy sources.
Over the next decade, triple the amount of energy harnessed from clean, renewable sources such as the wind and sun.
Increase government research and development funding for clean fuels, hydrogen fuel cells, and renewable electric generation technologies, and establish market incentives to boost their use.
Enact public policies that enable utilities to invest in renewable energy without putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
Set a responsible standard for a minimum renewable energy content for automotive fuels.
Shift World Bank and other international funding toward renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in developing nations.
2. Encourage and reward more efficient use of energy by utilities, vehicles, homes, appliances, buildings and businesses.
Provide incentives to commercialize and deploy highly efficient energy technologies that minimize waste.
Set higher fuel-efficiency standards so cars will go further on a gallon of gas.
Close the auto fuel efficiency loophole that allows sports utility vehicles (SUVs) to produce far more global warming pollution than cars.
3. Level the playing field for renewable technologies by ending public policies that keep the price of outdated energy sources artificially low.
Close the Clean Air Act loophole that allows older coal-fired power plants to pollute far more than newer plants, and set progressively tighter limits on power plants' total carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and mercury pollution.
Shift international energy funding in the developing world from outdated energy production methods (coal, large hydro, and oil) to clean, renewable energy technologies.
End taxpayer subsidies that artificially lower the price of coal, oil, and nuclear power.
Increase the accountability of the nuclear industry by removing the limits on liability for nuclear accidents.
Protect environmentally sensitive public lands from oil drilling and coal and uranium mining.
Provide adequate resources and job training for workers and communities now dependent on dated energy resources, to ensure that they achieve a just transition to a sustainable energy economy.
4. Demonstrate leadership in international efforts to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
Provide scientific and technical leadership in efforts to meet global energy needs with sources that do not contribute to global warming.
Ratify, implement, and work to strengthen the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce global warming pollution.
Develop and implement federal, state and local action plans to decrease global warming pollution
Lead by example, by implementing this Clean Energy Agenda
Earth Day Clean Energy Agenda National Action Plan to Reduce the Threat of Global Warming and Create a Sustainable Energy Future
As we approach the 21st century, Earth Day Network is launching a global campaign to bring about a swift transition to clean, renewable energy sources and a giant leap forward in energy efficiency.
Despite extraordinary technological breakthroughs in the energy industry, we continue to rely on mainly on 19th-century fossil fuel technologies to meet our energy needs. Our use of highly polluting fossil fuels, especially coal and oil, causes air pollution, acid rain, cancer, and other damage to human health and the environment. Burning fossil fuels also threatens us with global warming, potentially the most serious environmental crisis our planet has ever faced.
Scientists warn that if we do not act to curb global warming, we could see more extreme weather, droughts, spreading infectious diseases, sea level rise, and species extinctions. Global warming threatens to rob our children of their right to a safe and healthy environment.
We can reduce the global warming threat by phasing out polluting fuel sources and using the affordable, cost-effective renewable energy options now available. Clean, innovative technologies can grow the economy, create jobs and protect our air and water. By cutting energy waste and using wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other innovative sources of power, we can meet our energy needs without risking our own health and the health of the Earth. In addition, we can reduce atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping carbon gases by preserving and restoring the world's remaining forests and soils, which store carbon and keep it from circulating in the atmosphere.
As we enter the 21st century, a clean, secure, affordable energy future is within our grasp. The transition to clean, renewable energy systems can be accomplished through a combination of government, business and industry initiatives and individual actions. It will be essential to provide adequate resources to ensure that affected workers and communities are able to make a just transition to an era of cleaner technologies.
We support responsible public policies that:
1) Accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy sources.
2) Level the playing field for renewable technologies by ending public policies that keep the price of outdated energy sources artificially low.
3) Encourage and reward more efficient use of energy by utilities, vehicles, appliances, homes, buildings and businesses.
4) Demonstrate leadership in international efforts to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
The United States can embark on the path to a clean, renewable energy future by taking the following steps:
1) Accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy sources.
Goal: Provide at least 12% of U.S. energy needs from renewable energy sources by 2010 and 25% by 2020, increasing the percentage of renewable energy by at least 2% per year thereafter through 2050.
Strategies:
* Require electricity providers to produce more clean, renewable electricity by setting a renewable portfolio standard for electricity providers of 10% renewables (not including hydropower or municipal solid waste incineration) by 2010, increasing it by 2% of total power generation per year thereafter.
* Require a 5% renewable content standard for motor gasoline, to be met by 2010 and increased 1% per year thereafter, with all requirements calculated on an energy-equivalent basis. In addition, require a 1% reduction per year in the full fuel cycle carbon content of all transportation fuels, starting in 2005. Require federal fleets to double the targets in both the renewable content and carbon reduction standards.
* Require public benefit funds as part of state and federal electricity restructuring legislation.
* Increase R & D and deployment funding and establish market incentives that boost the use of clean fuels, hydrogen fuel cells, advanced transportation systems, renewable heating and cooling systems, and renewable electric generation technologies.
* To help U.S. farms move toward sustainable energy production, renew the Production Tax Credit with an expanded definition of biomass that includes agriculture and forestry wastes; mandate net metering; and provide incentives for the purchase of small-scale biomass gasifiers and farm digesters.
2) Encourage and reward more efficient use of energy by utilities, vehicles, appliances, homes, buildings and businesses.
Goal: Stabilize U.S. energy use at 1990 levels by 2010, then reduce it by at least 10% from those levels by 2020, and by 1% per year thereafter through 2050.
Strategies:
* Eliminate the loopholes that permit automakers to produce sport utility vehicles (SUVs) which guzzle gas and pollute the air at a much higher rate than cars.
* Make cleaner cars and trucks that go further on a gallon of gas by establishing a fleet-average (including cars, SUVs, mini-vans, and other light trucks) CAFE (fuel efficiency) standard of 42 mpg by 2010, increasing it by 1.5% yearly thereafter through 2030.
* Provide tax credits or other financial incentives to consumers who purchase vehicles that are highly efficient and use renewable fuels.
* Shift funding away from the construction of new roads, which contribute to suburban sprawl, and towards better land-use planning preservation of prime agricultural land, and energy-efficient transportation alternatives such as public transportation and bikeways.
* Require electricity producers, by 2010, to reduce by 20% the fossil fuel input per kilowatt-hour generated by fossil fuel plants.
* Provide incentives to commercialize and deploy highly efficient and cleaner vehicles, new homes, appliances, buildings, and industrial processes.
* Require energy efficiency improvements in the industrial sector, and provide incentives for greater use of combined heat and power (CHP) systems.
* Require all states and municipalities to implement state-of-the-art building energy performance standards.
* Provide tax credits to farmers who purchase conservation tillage equipment and equipment for capturing methane.
* Reduce the use of petrochemical fertilizers by setting strong national standards for organic agriculture.
3) Level the playing field for renewable technologies by ending public policies that keep the price of outdated energy sources artificially low, and gradually phase out the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power.
Goal: Phase out fossil fuels by 2050 - first coal, then oil, and ultimately natural gas. Phase out nuclear power by no later than 2020.
Strategies:
* Reduce pollution from electricity generation by closing the Clean Air Act loophole that allows older coal-fired power plants to pollute far more than newer plants, and by setting progressively tighter limits on total carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and mercury pollution from power plants.
* Eliminate taxpayer handouts to oil and coal corporations, including all subsidies for oil, coal, and natural gas development.
* Make companies pay their fair share for energy resources taken from public lands, and require companies to pay the full costs of the environmental damage they cause.
* Eliminate oil drilling and coal mining on environmentally sensitive public lands.
* End subsidies for nuclear power, including the Price-Anderson Act which limits corporate liability for nuclear power accidents.
* Do not relicense nuclear power plants.
* Vigorously enforce all safety standards for nuclear facilities.
* Phase out international funding of conventional energy projects (coal, large hydro, and oil) in the developing world.
* Provide adequate resources and job training for workers and communities now dependent on dated energy resources, to ensure that they achieve a just transition to a sustainable energy economy.
4) Demonstrate leadership in international efforts to reduce the pollution that causes global warming.
Goal: Reduce U.S. heat-trapping pollution by at least 10% below 1990 levels by 2010, and continue to reduce it by at least 2% per year thereafter. Strategies:
* Ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to reduce global warming pollution, as a modest first step; participate in international negotiations to achieve deeper, binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in future years.
* Provide scientific and technical leadership in the international effort to meet growing energy needs while lowering atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping pollution.
* Shift World Bank and other international funding for projects in developing countries, away from fossil fuels, large hydro and nuclear power, and toward renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.
* Lead by example through the implementation of this Clean Energy Agenda, and support the development and implementation of action plans by states and municipalities to reduce global warming pollutants.
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