This week and next, America has a chance to lead the world once again.
Thirty-thousand diplomats and delegates are gathered in Paris for climate talks this week and next. The ultimate goal? An agreement that commits every country—large and small, rich and poor, advanced and industrializing—to policies that will help stem the tide of global climate change.
Anything agreed to abroad, however, has to carry the weight of action at home. Fortunately, the United States is already head of the curve. Movements like the ’50 by 30’ campaign, which aims to see 50 percent of our electricity produced nationwide from clean energy sources, are moving us away from the dirty fossil fuels that are ratcheting up global temperatures and costing our own Department of Defense billions of dollars per year. Setting this example and charting a future towards a clean energy economy is key to rallying others to the cause in Paris.
And these choices see real benefits, both at home and abroad. Here in Colorado, the green energy economy is booming, with new jobs ranging from wind turbine manufacturing and solar panel installation to positions in a growing complex of research and development laboratories. Meanwhile, the technology being developed supports our men and women in uniform abroad; soldiers and Marines use solar-powered generators instead of relying on vulnerable fuel convoys in the open deserts of hostile-controlled territory, and sailors and airmen pilot the best military hardware in the world on biodiesel fuels.
Nonetheless, some will no doubt challenge the president’s choice to attend the Paris conference, or indeed to pay any attention to questions of climate and energy at all. There are other pressing issues in the world that require his focus, they say — a Middle East in flames, the long-touted pivot to the Pacific, and Russia’s adventurism in Ukraine among them. And their argument to face down the most-pressing threats first is compelling.
But the United States is exceptional, precisely in that it does not project global leadership in one, narrow field! We do more than lead coalitions of Arab and European allies to defeat violent extremists — though we do that well. We create trade alliances that box China in (with the help of friends like Japan and South Korea) and force it to play by the rules. We rally our partners in Europe to punish Putin’s Russia with sanctions on natural gas. And now, we play a key role in convening the whole world—not a small group of elites, but a global movement—to move towards solving a problem that only collective action can handle.
But this leadership abroad is credible only so long as we stay committed at home. For that, we must continue restricting our own carbon footprints and moving towards a safe, vibrant, and American clean energy economy.
Dennis Shorts is a financial services professional, member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council, and veteran living in Denver.