{"id":1061,"date":"2017-01-12T15:19:03","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T15:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2017-01-12T15:20:49","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T15:20:49","slug":"obama-asegura-que-el-momento-de-las-energias-limpias-es-irreversible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/novedades\/obama-asegura-que-el-momento-de-las-energias-limpias-es-irreversible\/","title":{"rendered":"President Obama Publishes in Science on Renewable Energy Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<header class=\"single-header\">\n<p class=\"single-header__meta\"><time datetime=\"2017-01-10T13:42:08-05:00\">10 January 2017<\/time><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<section class=\"prose\">Some luminaries take good-bye tours by traveling around the world, stopping in all the hip cities and waving to crowds. President Barack Obama publishes in leading academic journals.<\/p>\n<p>Already in the past\u00a0year, articles by him appeared in the <em>Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em>, the <em>New England Journal of Medicine<\/em>, and the <em>Harvard Law Review<\/em>. Now his byline\u00a0appears in another journal: <em>Science<\/em>. This week, the outgoing president published his first article in the journal, a <a href=\"http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/early\/2017\/01\/06\/science.aam6284\" target=\"_blank\">Policy Forum essay<\/a> in its magazine section stressing his belief that clean, renewable energy will flourish in the coming years.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pull-quote u-float-right\">\u201cI believe the trend toward clean energy is irreversible.\u201d<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThe business case for clean energy is growing, and the trend toward a cleaner power sector can be sustained regardless of near-term federal policies,\u201d Obama wrote. \u201cI believe the trend toward clean energy is irreversible.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Transition Tension<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>This is the first time a sitting president has published an article in <em>Science<\/em>, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the journal\u2019s publisher.<\/p>\n<p>The article comes at a tense time for scientists and policy makers interested in renewable energy and combating climate change. In December, President-elect\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s transition team sent a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/energy-and-environment\/2016\/12\/9\/13903860\/trump-energy-department-climate-memo\" target=\"_blank\">memo<\/a> to the Department of Energy asking for the names of any federal employee who had worked on a climate change\u2013related issue. Scientists in federal institutions like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have started <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/energy-environment\/wp\/2016\/12\/13\/scientists-are-frantically-copying-u-s-climate-data-fearing-it-might-vanish-under-trump\/?utm_term=.901c554d30fd\" target=\"_blank\">copying<\/a> their scientific data to personal servers in fear that newcomers will wipe their data.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the fears, \u201cthe mounting economic and scientific evidence leave me confident that trends toward a clean-energy economy that have emerged during my presidency will continue,\u201d Obama wrote.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Growth and Sustainability<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The president lays out several reasons why he remains confident in the future of renewable energy in the United States. He notes that between 2008 and 2015, while the economy grew by more than 10%, carbon dioxide emissions fell by 8%, so \u201cthe argument that combatting climate change requires accepting lower growth or a lower standard of living\u201d should be \u201cput to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pull-quote u-float-left\">\u201cThe investments needed to reduce emissions will be modest in comparison with the benefits from avoided climate-change damages.\u201d<\/aside>\n<p>Globally, Obama notes, the International Energy Agency estimated that the world\u2019s economy grew in 2015 while energy-related carbon dioxide emissions stayed flat.\u201cRegardless of the inherent uncertainties in predicting future climate change and weather patterns, the investments needed to reduce emissions will be modest in comparison with the benefits from avoided climate-change damages,\u201d Obama wrote.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Markets Speak<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>In the United States, electricity is the country\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/ghgemissions\/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions\" target=\"_blank\">largest<\/a> source of greenhouse gas emissions, at 30%, with 70% of those emissions coming from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eia.gov\/tools\/faqs\/faq.cfm?id=77&amp;t=11\" target=\"_blank\">burning coal<\/a>. Obama noted that less expensive production techniques have spurred the growth of the natural gas industry, a lower emitter of greenhouse gases. The fuel now generates 33% of U.S. electricity, compared to about 21% in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Other renewable energy technologies, like solar and wind, are quickly becoming less expensive. The cost of electricity from wind and solar photovoltaic installations fell 15% and 54%, respectively, between 2008 and 2015, Obama wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Nancy Pfund, a founder and managing partner at DBL Partners in San Francisco, Calif., which has invested in solar power company SolarCity and Tesla, recently told the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/01\/06\/your-money\/trump-may-not-like-alternative-energy-but-investors-should.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\"><em>New York Times<\/em><\/a>, \u201cNo longer is there a trade-off between what you believe in and what you can make money off of,\u201d referring to even politically conservative states that have invested in renewable energies.<\/p>\n<p>Investors \u201care going to redouble their efforts to migrate their portfolios to a 21st century energy economy,\u201d she told the <em>Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Global Leadership<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Corporations have already lined up behind President Obama\u2019s push for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In the summer of 2015, corporations like Apple, Google, and Coca-Cola <a href=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/2015\/10\/19\/white-house-climate-pledge\/\" target=\"_blank\">pledged<\/a> to reduce emissions.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Obama notes in the Policy Forum article that Google recently announced its plans to power 100% of its operations from renewable sources. Walmart has also disclosed plans to shift 100% of its energy use to renewables in the coming years.<\/p>\n<p>Last, Obama stresses that the United States should continue investing in the fight against climate change to remain a solid leader. Because of the Paris Agreement, more than 110 countries are now monitoring themselves\u2014and each other\u2014in these efforts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would undermine our economic interests to walk away from the opportunity to hold countries representing two-thirds of the global emissions\u2014including China, India, Mexico, European Union members, and others\u2014accountable,\u201d Obama wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014JoAnna Wendel (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoAnnaScience\" target=\"_blank\">@JoAnnaScience<\/a>), Staff Writer<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2017. The authors. <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/us\/\" target=\"_blank\">CC BY-NC-ND 3.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<div id=\"citation\"><strong>Citation: <\/strong>Wendel, J. (2017), President Obama publishes in <em>Science<\/em> on renewable energy future, Eos, 98, doi:10.1029\/2017EO066285. Published on 10 January 2017.<\/div>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the journal&#8217;s Policy Forum, the president lays out why renewable energy investments will surge in the future regardless of political headwinds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[90,43,66,5,12,87,26,88,98],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genesisarg.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}