This new report from The Brookings Insitution details how "innovation drives America’s economic growth and ultimately determines its living standards and those of its metropolitan areas. However, the nation faces a growing innovation challenge in today’s global economy. To respond, the federal government should establish a National Innovation Foundation (NIF)—a new, nimble, lean, and collaborative entity devoted to supporting firms and other organizations in their innovative activities. By enhancing America’s world-class entrepreneurial and market environment, NIF would boost the nation’s innovation leadership for the 21st century and raise productivity and incomes. Moreover, by supporting workforce development and performance improvement in firms, NIF would help create better jobs for high school graduates in manufacturing and “low tech” services as well as those with advanced degrees in high technology industries."

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Source: The Brookings Institution

[Press Release] European Commission agreed on 23 January 2008 to a far-reaching package of proposals that will deliver the European Council’s commitments to fight climate change and promote renewable energy. These measures will dramatically increase the use of renewable energy in each country and set legally enforceable targets for governments to achieve them. All major CO2 emitters will be given an incentive to develop clean production technologies through a thorough reform of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) that will impose an EU-wide cap on emissions. The package seeks to deliver the European Union to reduce greenhouse gases by at least 20% and increases to 20% the share of renewable energies in the energy consumption by 2020, as agreed by EU leaders in March 2007. The emissions reduction will be increased to 30% by 2020 when a new global climate change agreement is reached.

The full proposal can be found by clicking here.

Christian Egenhofer, Lew Milford, Noriko Jujiwara, Thomas L. Brewer and Monica Alessi. European Climate Platform (ECP) Report No. 4, December 2007.

This report analyzes the issue of technology development, demonstration and diffusion with a view to indentifying the key elements of a complementary global technology track in the post-2012 framework.

This report is based on discussions at the ECP seminar on Strategic Aspects of Technology for the UNFCCC and Climate Change Debate: The Post-Bali Technology Agenda, 3 October 2007, Brussels.

Commission of the European Communities. Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and teh Committee of the Regions. Brussels, 22 November 2007.

Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Draft, 16 November 2007.

This report concludes that warming of the climate system is unequivical.

Lewis Milford, Clean Energy Group, November 2007. Discussion paper to be presented at the Road to Copenhagen 2009 Conference on Leadership, Sustainable Development and Climate Change, Brussels, Belgium.

This paper proposes a new global architecture and strategy for climate technology innovaiton for the post-2012 framework.

Jonathan Lewis, Clean Air Task Force, October 2007.

In 2003 the EU issued a Directive promoting the use of biofuels and other renewable fuels for transport. The Directive sought/seeks to have biofuels account for 2% of EU transport fuels by 2005, 5.75% by 2010, and in a 2007 addendum, 10% by 2020.

The EU mandate was primarily driven by farm policy, to create new outlets for agricultural and forestry products, and to diversify rural economies. Reduced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), energy security, and improved environmental impacts were cited as ancillary benefits of the policies. However, due in part to global market forces and economic efficiencies in developing countries, the result is that the Directive has exacerbated some of the very problems it was designed to solve, driving up food prices, leading to increased deforestation in tropical countries, worsening global warming, and increasing imports of bio-oils.

This report from Clean Air Task Force examines these unintended consequences and highlights the need for updated, comprehensive tools to analyze the true net impacts of policies that increase biofuels use.

Lewis Milford, Clean Energy Group, October 2007. Presentation to the European Climate Platform, Brussels.

ECP Seminar - Strategic Aspects of Technology for the UNFCCC and Climate Change Debate: The post-Bali technology agenda, October 3, 2007.

Jeremy Lovell, Reuters. September 24, 2007. This analysis by Jeremy Lovell explains that carbon pricing will not achieve the carbon reductions necessary to make a global energy system carbon neutral by 2050, and he makes the case that strict technical standards and investment incentives will be needed to achieve that transition.

Link to the APEC Economic Leaders Declaration on Climate Change, Energy Security and Clean Development, from the 19th APEC Ministerial Meeting, Sydney, Austrailia, Sept. 9, 2007.