Ask the Expert: Kate Gordon on International Clean Energy Investments

Where is the United States in relation to other countries on clean-energy investments?

The United States is actually second worldwide in the amount we spend on clean energy, but that is not really a good figure to think about where we are. If you think about what we spend in relation to our GDP, which is probably the critical figure, we're 19th worldwide. And for a country that's a global leader in the economy, that's just not acceptable. We're behind, as we say in this report that we're putting out, we're behind Germany and Spain and China. I think Germany is number three, Spain number four, and China number six in terms of percentage spent on clean energy as a percent of GDP. So while the United States has installed a lot of renewable energy, we've talked a good game on energy efficiency, we have good, state-level renewable energy standards and other things that sort of set a bar for installing renewable energy, we are nowhere really when it comes to the global economy.

How will the United States' lack of action on clean energy affect our economy?

If we don't get involved in this economy, we're essentially just not becoming players in a huge, global game of the clean energy industry development. We're looking at a 2.3 to 2.5 trillion dollar industry over the next 15 years. That's an industry that if we don't capture through inventing, installing, producing, maintaining clean energy systems and efficiency systems, if we don't capture those markets, other countries--Germany, China, Spain--but others as well will absolutely capture those markets. We are in danger of being left behind. In fact, as John Doer testified to the Senate a couple months ago, we are already left behind, we are already not doing what we need to do to capture those markets. And that's why you things like solar panels invented by Bell Labs here in the United States commercialized elsewhere and now primarily engineered and produced in China. We'll see that across technologies if we don't become more serious about clean energy. If we decide we're an economy based on exporting services alone, what we'll do is we'll lose the ability to export all of these different component parts, all of these different systems, all of these patents and inventions that other countries are investing in for clean energy. And I think that's a huge missed opportunity for the United States.

What can we do to get back ahead of the pack on clean energy?

Countries that make a solid commitment to reducing their carbon emissions and really lay down that that's a commitment of the country, have just far better spending, far better investments on clean energy. These countries, for instance, the Kyoto signatories, which is the closest thing we have to a global clean energy agreement right now, or a global climate agreement, the Kyoto signatories saw a 33 percent increase in their clean energy patents from the time they signed the agreement until now. The United States in that same corresponding amount of time has seen zero increase in our clean energy patents. So we really need to make some kind of a commitment and we would argue that a price and a cap on carbon is the number one thing that this country can do to send a signal that we're serious about it being a part of the clean energy economy, that we're serious about lowering the cost of renewable energy technologies, about evening the playing field with fossil fuel technologies.