KC Golden on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the 'confidence gap' and more

KC Golden discusses the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the 'confidence gap' in which the general public understands that fossil fuel dependence is a bad idea, but they are still unaware of the existing renewable energy solutions that can replace it, and much more.

Beyond Zero speaks to KC Golden

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Scott Bilby: Now this morning on Beyond Zero we’re talking with KC Golden. He’s the policy director for an organisation called Climate Solutions. They’re based in the northwest of the USA. They focus on solutions to global warming by galvanising leadership, growing investment and bridging divides. KC also oversees the Northwest Climate Connection Program, Climate Connections Program I should say, and is on the advisory board of the Alliance for Climate Protection whose projects include Repower America, the We Campaign and the Reality Coalition, which will be one of the things we’ll talk about.

Hello KC, are you there?

KC Golden: I’m here. Thanks for having me Scott.

Scott Bilby: Thanks for joining us. How’s the weather over there in Seattle Washington this afternoon?

KC Golden: Perfect, beautiful Seattle afternoon. Wish you could be here.

Scott Bilby: [Laughs] I wish I could. It’s a cold and rainy Melbourne, but we’re very lucky to have some rain here because Melbourne has just recorded its driest first half-year on record I think.

KC Golden: Right.

Scott Bilby: Now KC can I start off by just asking - your name is KC, the letter K and the letter C, how did you get that?

KC Golden: Oh boy. It’s a long and not very interesting story that I’ll tell when you have a longer show, but my legal name is K Cecil Golden, and my parents for some reason just left it at that first initial.

Scott Bilby: OK. Well it’s very catchy. Now, you work at a place called Climate Solutions so you obviously think big. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you decided, just like us at Beyond Zero Emissions, to transform the world.

KC Golden: Well, you know, we ran out of other options right? [Laughs] I’ve been doing this my whole adult life and I first got involved in energy issues when I was a white water raft guide and they wanted to dam my river so I got involved in doing energy advocacy around that. But, you know, over the years, over the 20-plus years that I’ve been doing this, it’s become more and more clear that our energy challenges are really at the root of our biggest global, social and security and environmental challenges and so I’ve just been digging in deeper and deeper on those energy solutions.

And of course over that 20-year period we’ve also been steadily getting more and more of the sobering news about what former Vice-President Gore calls the ‘objective circumstances’ of our situation on the planet. And you know, climate I think, responding to this challenge, has really become I think the defining challenge for our generation. I’ve got teenage kids now and this has just become the thing that I feel most compelled to do with my time on Earth. And it really has become I think a generational challenge for us and what we’ll be remembered for – how well we respond to this is what future generations will judge us by I think.

Scott Bilby: And we’ll talk about that sort of stuff soon, especially the kind of consumption binge that the Western world has really been hooked on for so long and, you know, we’ve been really sold down the river by certain interests who have actually – it’s not just an environmental challenge or, you know – it’s also that even from a jobs point of view and an economic point of view we’ve really been sold a huge lie. But anyway, we will talk about this, and I want to talk about that very much with you. But we’ll talk a little bit first about Climate Solutions. And just tell us who they are.

KC Golden: We are a research and advocacy organisation. We work, as you said, up in the northwest corner of the US. The four northwest states that we sometimes refer to as ‘Cascadia’ or ‘Ecotopia’ if you’ve read Schumacher, and we work on kind of the intersection between public policy and what’s going on in the private economy to accelerate the kinds of technologies and businesses that will replace the fossil fuel industry.

So we spend a lot of time in state legislatures, working on climate and energy policy. And of course now in the US, all of us folks who have been working at the state and local level are really setting our sights on moving the US Congress to adopt the first meaningful national climate policy. So we’re spending more and more time in the nation’s capital trying to get Congress and the President over the hump of putting in place responsible limits on US emissions.

Scott Bilby: OK. And so that brings me to the Climate and Energy Bill in the United States. Is that the same thing as the American Clean Energy and Security Act?

KC Golden: Right. Yes it is.

Scott Bilby: OK, and so just a few days ago in the US the American Clean Energy and Security Act was passed by the House of Representatives, can you tell us your thoughts on that Bill?

KC Golden: Well, you know it’s interesting to watch the political process in action. I think I would say on the Bill’s behalf that it is the first time that the United States Congress has seriously contemplated a real commitment, an enforceable commitment, to bring our emissions down to safe levels over time and to systematically build our clean energy economy and reduce our fossil fuel dependence. So from that perspective it’s a real landmark and it’s been a long time coming and we’re very pleased that we’ve got to this point.

Having said that, you know, our political process is a lot of give and take among special interests and among regional interests and that process has resulted in a bill that has an awful lot of political accommodations for an awful lot of interests. It still basically keeps its eye on the ball but there’s a lot of diversions and a lot of mis-directions in it that could potentially frustrate the achievement of its goals. Of course it’s only moved through one House, and the other House and the President will ultimately have their say, and we’re going to be pulling out all the stops to make sure that, at the end of the day, this thing delivers solutions at scale.

Knowing that we’re probably not going to get it all done in one bite, we want to make sure that it’s on a track, not just to give us a little bit of token clean energy and emission reduction here and there, but really set this on a path where we can get on and stick to a trajectory that over the next four years completely transforms our energy economy and puts us in a position to have a fighting chance to stave off catastrophic climate disruption.

Scott Bilby: And….

KC Golden: And, you know, you’ve got to say, it’s late in the game. We took too long getting started and so we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. But this is certainly the biggest step American leaders have ever taken and that’s something to be recognised.

Scott Bilby: And as David Orr said, author and commentator on all things environmental - and we spoke to him on our radio show a while ago - and he said that under George Bush and, or even previous administrations as well, the US went missing. So yeah, you have left it a bit late in the day to do something, but it really stirs the emotions of a lot of people around the world to see you finally doing something. It’s really good. Now you said that Congress is made up of two houses. So you’ve got both the House of Representatives and you’ve got the Senate. Do you think the Bill will get up in the Senate? And how soon is it likely to be put to the challenge there?

KC Golden: Well it’s going to have a hearing next week, its first hearing next week, and the chair of the committee, sort of the lead committee in the USA, has vowed to mark it up and do the steps and work on it before they recess in August, in early August. So I think it’ll move through those first committee steps relatively quickly. And then we’ll have a battle royal to get it to the Senate floor and get up a policy Senate vote at the end of the day and I don’t really want to try to predict the timing on that. You know, people will tell you stories to reduce or raise your expectations about what they expect. And I’m not a crystal ball gazer, I’m an advocate, so we’re just going to push as hard as we can to get this Bill strengthened and get in front of our whole Senate….

Scott Bilby: Sure….

KC Golden: …. and get it acted on in time for us to arrive at the international negotiations, having ante’d up and made a good faith effort to get our national policies into line with the strengthened global treaty that we need to help engineer and join in Copenhagen in December.

Scott Bilby: OK. Well that was going to be my next question. Will it be ready – well, so that is the big hope we’ll have it ready for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Now, I also wanted to ask a little bit about the recent polling that has been done in the US which indicates that voters don’t place that high a premium on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which I find a bit disturbing, but they support instead policies that will create renewable energy and also wean America off foreign oil. Do you find it discouraging that the Democrats have had to put so much emphasis on the jobs line, ie, you know, that we’ll create jobs, to try to sell this legislation?

KC Golden: Well, I don’t know. There is part of me that wishes…. You know, I do a lot of public speaking so I go out and I kind of encounter peoples’ doubts still about the science and about the objective reality of the situation. And yes, I guess I can say I’m frustrated that we don’t have sufficient political will to do what’s necessary just on the basis of the climate science because it’s compelling. It’s an emergency and we’re not acting as though it’s an emergency. So yes I do find that frustrating. But I will say that I don’t think of the ‘jobs’ angle on this, if you will, as merely a communication tactic for selling the climate program.

You know, climate is unlike any environmental problem that we’ve faced before in the sense that usually the way we think about solving environmental problems is a process of mitigating or constraining the adverse impacts of the way our economy functions. Climate is too big for that way of thinking about it. We are not going to solve climate change just by, you know, sanding the rough edges off the fossil fuel economy or limiting or constraining its adverse impacts. We ought to build something fundamentally different and more sustainable. And that really is a building enterprise, that really is an economic enterprise, that really is a job creating enterprise. So I think until we get our heads around the idea that we’re not just trying to pretty up, you know, an ugly environmental problem, we’re trying to build an economy that functions in a fundamentally different and more sustainable way, then I don’t think we’re thinking big enough to solve the climate challenge.

Scott Bilby: OK. Yeah that’s….

KC Golden: So, you know…..

Scott Bilby: Sorry…..

KC Golden: Go ahead.

Scott Bilby: Yeah, I was just going to say that’s very nicely put before I rudely interrupted you.

KC Golden: Well, I was just going to say, you know the polling, I don’t take too much stock in the polling. You know, you can ask a polling question that gets whatever answer you want. What the polling tells us is that if you separate climate from everything else and just say, ‘How much do you care about greenhouse gas emissions per se?’ then people are going to rank that behind a whole bunch of other things that they think are more important like the economy and healthcare and that sort of thing. But to separate it that way is really artificial because it is intimately connected to how our economy functions, to whether we reduce our fossil fuel dependence and create all the economic opportunities associated with a new energy economy. It’s intimately connected to our national security and when you describe it in all those connections, then I think people care about it a lot, and I think solving it is a winning political platform. Those kind of polls tend to be done and emphasised by people who want to make climate a losing political platform by separating it from all those things it’s connected to.So I don’t really put a lot of stock in those polls that make those artificial separations.

Scott Bilby: Now we’re on Beyond Zero and we’re talking with KC Golden, he’s the policy director for an organisation called Climate Solutions, he’s also on the advisory board for Alliance for Climate Protection.

Now KC, that’s interesting because the Republicans at this point are pushing very hard on the – well as soon as the legislation was passed in the House of Representatives, they were making a big noise about, you know, job losses, job losses all over the place. So, do you think that’s sort of just a, you know, a predictable reactive sort of response that’s not really going to have much traction with the American public?

KC Golden: I think it could – I think there’s a danger that it will have traction because people are scared, and we have run up against some of the fundamental limits and contradictions in our economy in a way that is, you know, genuinely hurting people economically. And so the question is, ‘How do you respond to that?’ and too often the response is you freeze, you’re fearful, you don’t want to change, you don’t want to do anything that rocks the boat. And yet, I think that’s the least productive response we could have.

I think what the economy is telling us is that we need to rebuild the platform for our prosperity. We need to rebuild how we function and prosper and live on this planet, not hold onto what we’ve got. So I am worried that that idea will get traction, but I think it’s winnable because I think at the end of the day most people understand that for one reason or another fossil fuel dependence is a dead end street. They understand that it’s harming us economically, that it’s reducing our national security, that it’s disrupting the climate.

I find it very easy to communicate with a wide spectrum of political viewpoints - conservatives and liberals alike - on the point that prolonging our fossil fuel dependence is going to be bad for us economically, environmentally, in every way you can think of. What they’re not necessarily convinced of is that there’s a better way to go that’s ready to go and that we can power our economy with and that it’s going to be economically attractive and feasible in scale. So I call that the confidence gap. People are ready to entertain a different idea that fossil fuel dependence – but they’re not sure what that idea is or that it’s really ready for prime time.

So I think our communication challenge and our political challenge is going to be really building confidence and will and momentum behind the idea not just that fossil fuel dependence is a bad idea, but that we’ve got a better idea and that we can make it work.

Scott Bilby: And you called that the ‘confidence gap’?

KC Golden: Yeah. I did.

Scott Bilby: OK. And yeah OK. I just didn’t quite hear you correctly there. So, the ‘confidence gap’. That’s a great name. And are Americans aware of the big utility solar thermal plants that now have molten salt storage, that are being built, especially in Spain and stuff like that. And I’m sure they’ll soon be built in the southwest of America from what I can work out.

KC Golden: Yeah, to some extent. You know, people are starting to see more and more evidence that the clean energy economy is real. That it’s available, that it’s affordable and that, you know, at the end of the day it’s going to perform better than the fossil fuel economy. But the evidence isn’t, I think for most people the evidence isn’t conclusive yet. It’s starting to trickle in, but I don’t think they’re ready to make the big turn. Turn away from the familiar and the usual and, you know, filling up their cars with cheap gas. And so, I think we’ve got a ways to go before they see more of those kind of stories and that kind of evidence and are really ready to make the shift with both feet.

Scott Bilby: Now, President Obama said that the American Clean Energy and Security Act will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy, including wind, solar, geo-thermal power and also safer nuclear energy and also cleaner coal. Now just touching on the reference to clean coal, which, for the listeners, I’ll just say is a euphemism for carbon capture and storage. Now on Beyond Zero we interviewed S David Freeman last year. He was the chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority and this is a utility much larger than anything in Australia. And they were buying something like 30 million tonnes of coal a year. So he knows a bit about coal as he says. And he said the phrase ‘clean coal’ is oxymoronic, it is just blatantly false. So my question to you KC is does it concern you that Obama is pushing so-called ‘clean coal’?

KC Golden: Yeah. The phrase is oxymoronic in the sense that even if carbon capture and sequestration pans out, you can never call coal clean with a straight face. I mean from the mining to the, you know, the local air pollution to the CO2 to all that. Clean it ain’t. But I think that there is some prospect that we can develop technology to dispose of some of the CO2 from coal, at which point it won’t be clean, but it won’t be the unmitigated climate disaster that it is now. I’m not necessarily a booster of that. I think my jury’s out on whether that’s possible at scale. But the reason that I think it bears some investigation into research and development is primarily because of the developing economies, and particularly China.

I think it’s going to be very, very difficult to persuade people who aspire to western levels of prosperity that they can’t burn their coal like we did to get there. So, you know, it is definitely not my favourite climate solution, it is not the best climate solution, it’s not the climate solution we should emphasise over renewable energy and particularly energy conservation, but I will also say that the math here is very, very sobering. You know, we have to virtually completely eliminate emissions from fossil fuels within the working lifetimes of the kids who are graduating college today. And so I have to say that, you know, after we get through implementing all of my very favourite spotless climate solutions, I think we’re going to have more work to do. And I’m at least prepared to see some research and development effort go into the idea that somebody’s going to figure out a way to safely dispose of carbon emissions from burnt coal.

Having said that, I don’t want to spend our whole wad on it, and I certainly don’t want to see any new coal plants sited until we know for sure that we can responsibly dispose of the emissions. So, there are proposals out there that say, ‘Oh, let’s put in a new plant’, you know throw in a little R&D to see if we can safely dispose of the carbon. That doesn’t work. We can’t commit ourselves to any, any new coal fire generation until we’ve demonstrated that we can safely dispose of all of the carbon pollution. And we absolutely have not done that yet.

Scott Bilby: And, yeah, and carbon capture and storage, by the time it’s even up and running, if it’s ever up and running on scale, is going to be more expensive than wind and solar by the time it, you know, really finds a place anyway. But anyway look….

KC Golden: I think that’s very likely true.

Scott Bilby: Yes. Now, the United Nations Climate Change Conference is fast approaching. Now this, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, if it gets past the House, ah sorry the Senate, do you have the same kind of, are you – like I feel quite optimistic that if that Act does get passed and the US goes to Copenhagen with that Act having passed both houses, that it will have a positive influence on China and India?

KC Golden: Oh absolutely. You know, I mean I think – I don’t want to overstate the case, but we in the US who are working on this problem feel a terrific sense of responsibility, and regret frankly, that the world’s biggest per capita emitter and the country that’s emitted the most of the CO2 that’s up there now, has been the biggest obstacle to progress. And, I don’t think we’re the only obstacle to progress, but I can’t imagine how the developing world could – and particularly China and India – could take us seriously until we’ve made a domestic commitment to legally binding emissions reductions. So, you know, I don’t think that solves everything but I think it’s the first threshold condition for even getting in a serious discussion with the developing world about how we’re all going to do this together.

Scott Bilby: Now the – wow the time really seems to be flying. Now, you’re also on the advisory board of the Alliance for Climate Protection. Can you tell us what that is and what your involvement is there?

KC Golden: Well, the US NGO movement has come together around getting this national policy in place in a way that, that I’ve never seen before and that’s very gratifying. So, it’s not all a perfect symphony yet, but you’ve got an awful lot of people putting in an awful lot of resources and hard work in and basically pulling in the same direction for the first time. And part of that has been because of the leadership of Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection.

The Alliance is a – it’s not a coalition, it’s not a – you know, so my role as an adviser is not a – it’s not a governing board. You know we don’t all hash out the decisions as a big collaborative process. It’s a small board of directors and Al Gore himself has a very prominent leadership role.

And they are doing a remarkable job of changing the dialogue in this country and taking the high ground I think in the critical, particularly the critical swing states we call them in the US, the states that are most concerned about energy cost increases and industrial job losses, and really making the case in a very powerful way with very sophisticated communications; that the clean energy future is a better economic future. And I think the thing that they’ve done, that they’ve unlocked I think in a really successful way, is Americans have heard from our presidents for 40 years about the dangers of fossil fuel dependence and every American president has left office with America more dependent on fossil fuels than when they took office. So we’ve been hearing speeches and hand waving and rhetoric for four decades….for my whole adult life. And no-one has really done anything about it. And I think what the Alliance has done is really capitalise on that sense of, ‘We are tired of speeches and we are tired of rhetoric, we want to see some real concerted ambitious national action’, bigger than our leaders are used to or comfortable with frankly. And the Alliance has really been the lead for doing the communications to capture that sense of frustration and determination on the part of the American people to head in a different direction.

So a lot of their work has been on communications, and, you know, paid media and public communications and now they are also putting a lot of work into on the ground and grass roots organising, particularly focused on the swing states where we need the votes in our Congress. And that’s just been a huge infusion of, you know, communications and grass roots resources and it’s really, really helping us come together as an NGO community and take it to the next level and really raise our game.

Scott Bilby: And yeah, we’ve really loved, you know, looking at - on YouTube and on the web and stuff like that - and just the flow-on effects from that, from all the work that the Alliance for Climate Protection has been doing. Now, we really are running out of time, but just quickly I want to ask you one other question. How do you feel when the US Environment Protection Agency comes out and recently says things like, “Climate pollution endangers public health and welfare”. That’s a big statement from quite a conservative organisation don’t you think?

KC Golden: Oh you can look at it either way. They are a federal agency and I, you know, I suppose I tend to look at the other side of it which is, ‘How the hell could it have taken them this long to come to that conclusion?’ I mean the scientists have been saying that for decades, literally decades. And the fact that, you know, the agency responsible for protecting the environment in the US is just coming around to that conclusion is, let’s just say it’s overdue. But let’s also say that it’s welcome and it is a big shift and it really says that this administration, unlike past administrations, is determined to use its executive authority to do everything in its power to get serious about solutions. And we’ve been waiting for that for a long time and we’re very relieved and glad that it’s here.

Scott Bilby: Now KC, I’m afraid we’ve run out of time, and I still had so many questions to ask you. I’m going to have to try and get you on to have another discussion at a later date, would you be interested in that?

KC Golden: Sure. I’d love to.

Scott Bilby: OK. And thank you very much for telling us about the Climate and Energy Act that was just passed through the House of Representatives in the US, and let’s hope it gets through the Senate soon before the Copenhagen talks.

KC Golden: Here’s to that. We’ll do everything in our power.

Scott Bilby: OK. Thank you very much.

KC Golden: Alright.

Scott Bilby: We’ve just been speaking to KC Golden and he’s the policy director for Climate Solutions, and he’s also on the advisory board of the Alliance for Climate Protection. To learn more about the guys at Climate Solutions, visit climatesolutions.org. Also, to learn about the Alliance for Climate Protection, go to climateprotect.org.

Transcript by Jenny Gibson