LAS VEGAS — In his first out-of-state trip since taking office in January, California Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that he plans to forge ahead with aggressive renewable energy policies amid growing evidence of climate change.
“Climate change has become more obvious, and we see great opportunity in investing in wind, solar and energy efficiency, or ‘negawatts,’” Brown told a gathering here of 700 clean energy advocates. “This is like the computer industry when it first started. It starts small and it keeps growing. We’re not going to ever not need energy.”
Brown was one of several high-profile speakers at the fourth annual National Clean Energy Summit, hosted by Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and the Center for American Progress think tank.
Many of the speakers, from U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu to Vice President Joe Biden, urged the nation to continue to invest in science education, research and development, and stable tax incentives for cleantech startups or risk losing the highly competitive cleantech race to countries like China and Germany.
“Our country has a choice — what kind of country are we going to be?” asked Biden, who recently returned from a 10-day trip to China and Mongolia. “Are we going to rise to the challenges, like our grandfathers and grandmothers did? Or are we going to be a follower? It’s sad that we’re having this debate — in the past America has always led.”
Biden cautioned that “if we don’t lead, we will have to trade importing oil for importing clean technology. Innovation and energy will go on whether or not we join, and no nation which expects to be a leader of other nations can fall behind.
But with federal stimulus funding winding down and budget battles looming in Washington, the future of clean energy investment looks bleak. Many advocates want Congress to pass a national Clean Energy Standard, which would require a specified amount of the nation’s electricity to come from renewable power by a certain date.
California already has the most aggressive renewable standard in the nation: 33 percent by 2020, a goal that utilities like PG&E and Southern California Edison are well on their way to meeting.
“Last year we permitted 5,000 megawatts of wind and solar, and we have applications for 70,000 megawatts,” said Brown. “The 33 percent goal has stimulated real investment. The entrepreneurs that made the computer revolution are the same people investing in renewable energy. Google (GOOG) is investing. These companies will grow.”
While Washington is paralyzed by bipartisan feuding, Western states are increasingly collaborating on key issues, from how to site new transmission lines to how to ship renewable energy up and down the West coast.
“As Western governors, we’re working more closely together than any other part of the country,” said Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire. “We’re building an electric vehicle highway from Canada through California, and our Pacific Coast Collaborative is working to create clean jobs. We’d be very naive to sit back and do nothing with the excuse that we’re in a recession.”
In an interview with the Mercury News before his public remarks, Brown said he would continue to talk about the realities of climate change even as many politicians in Washington try to avoid that conversation.
“Climate change will create floods, droughts, forest fires of greater intensity and regularity, and with far greater devastation,” he said, asserting that many of the people who once denied that tobacco was harmful are now well-financed “climate deniers.”
“Climate denial propaganda is very powerful, but California is standing against it,” Brown said. “Part of my job is to advance the truth of science.”
