Energy efficiency measures could create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs by the year 2020, according to a new report published by McKinsey & Company. The report, Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. Economy, is now available for free viewing online.
According to the report, a comprehensive effort to improve energy efficiency in the U.S. could:
Save the nation more than $1.2 trillion by 2020
Help stop global warming by abating up to 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions per year
The cost of reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions and creating a clean energy economy could come to as little 22 cents a day for American households, according to top Obama administration officials. The comments came as Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testified in support of federal climate change legislation before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on Tuesday. Last month, the House of Representatives voted to pass The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, or “ACES”. Now it is the Senate’s turn to come its own version of the bill.
“Opponents of this effort claim the nation cannot afford to act at this time. I disagree, and so do the Environmental Protection Agency and the Congressional Budget Office,” Chu testified. “These organizations estimate that meeting the greenhouse gas targets in the House bill can be achieved at an annual cost between 22 cents and 48 cents per day per household in 2020. That’s about the price of a postage stamp per day.”
“I do not mean to say that we can get something for nothing,” Jackson stated. “But according to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the net cost to the average American household in 2020 would be less than 50 cents a day.”
Other administration officials testifying at the hearing, “Moving America Toward a Clean Energy Economy and Reducing Global Warming Pollution: Legislative Tools”, included Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack and Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar. They urged members of the committee to view federal climate legislation as an opportunity to create new green jobs and make America a leader in the global clean energy economy.
Yesterday, after a meeting with CEO’s from the nation’s most innovative energy companies, President Barack Obama told reporters that the global warming legislation passed by the House last week and currently being debated in the Senate will create new clean energy jobs for America and reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The work of building a clean energy economy was begun in earnest with passage of the American Relief and Recovery Act earlier this year. The stimulus package is already creating green jobs, according to the President.
“I'm pleased to say that we've achieved more in the past few months to create a new clean energy economy than we had achieved in many decades before,” he told reporters gathered at the White House. “The recovery plan will double our country's supply of renewable energy, and is already creating new clean energy jobs.”
Obama went on to say that the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the climate bill now awaiting a vote in the U.S. Senate, has the potential to create millions of new green jobs and curb global warming pollution.
“And last Friday, the House of Representatives passed an extraordinary piece of legislation that would make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy in America,” Obama went on to say. "It will reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It will prevent the worst consequences of climate change. And above all, it holds the promise of millions of new jobs -- jobs, by the way, that can't be outsourced.”
