HOUSTON, March 10 — U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Tuesday urged companies in the country to accept a limit on carbon pollution and meet the challenge with clean, renewable energy.
"We will live in a carbon-constrained world," Chu warned the participants at a key industry conference, sponsored by IHS- Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA Week), which draws more than 2,000 energy professionals to Houston.
Chu reiterated his conviction that climate change is real, as global temperature data gathered between 1850 and 2006 prove "the climate is warming up."
He said that 55 percent of the oil used in the United States is imported, and the challenge is in what to replace it with.
Clean-burning natural gas, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist said, will serve as the bridge fuel to take the United States from a reliance on oil and coal to alternatives like solar and wind.
Chu said it is only a matter of time before the United States regulates carbon dioxide emissions. "Let's get moving now," he told the conference. "Time is running out, and the train is leaving the station."
Chu said that the U.S. needs a long-term cap on carbon output and a market price for carbon because it will send a long-term signal to energy companies, removing the uncertainty around capital investment plans.
He said the United States needs to enact climate legislation.
Chu said investment in new technologies, renewable or otherwise, is about more than just climate change — it would ensure enough energy to go around, wean the United States off foreign oil and help the country compete in technology on an international level. (PNA/Xinhua) ALM