|
CSIS Event, October, 22, 2008 – As part of its series of discussions on energy and national security, the Center for Strategic and International Studies held a panel discussion on the role of energy efficiency in climate legislation. Joe Loper, Senior Vice President for Policy and Research at the Alliance to Save Energy, led off the discussion with an overview of the opportunities and challenges of using energy efficiency to reduce the cost of compliance with federal climate legislation. He discussed the cost of implementing energy efficiency measures, and pointed to market barriers that prevent the socially optimal degree of investment in energy efficiency. He stressed the need to study and address these market barriers, but also urged swift action on climate legislation because a carbon price is likely the single most effective tool to promote green house gas reductions. Karen Palmer, of Resources for the Future, discussed issues related to cap and trade policy design including impacts of free allocation for regulated and unregulated power markets. She also presented the findings of their recent study on the effectiveness of building efficiency programs in reducing the overall costs of Maryland’s compliance with its commitments under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Lawrence Makovich, of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, focused on the cost of efficiency and challenged the notion that energy efficiency has negative costs and can offset the costs of other types of measures. Skip Laitner, from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and his colleagues, challenged the argument of Mr. Makovich, offering several examples of low-cost energy efficiency opportunities that would pay for themselves even without a carbon price and posited that many “negative cost” opportunities are the result of non-price barriers, including government regulations (e.g., utility interconnection restrictions) and social conditioning. The presentations were followed by a question and answer session. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||