Surrounded by coal, oil, and natural gas executives at a Bank of America energy conference in Key Biscayne, Florida, Purvis and her six friends had not been invited.  Armed with banners and signs, they still made their presence known.

"Bank of America forgot to put alternative energy into the agenda," Purvis, a member of the activist group Everglades Earth First!, said into her megaphone. "So as the clean energy transition team, we were asked to speak to you all tonight."

The party guests were less than impressed with Purvis's sense-of-humor. One guest allegedly wrestled the activists' banner out of their hands. During the melee, Purvis said, two of her associates were doused with beer.

"We did commit trespassing," Purvis said. "But is trespassing truly a crime as opposed to putting the entire planet in turmoil?"

Climate activists worldwide are raising the stakes, with many turning to civil disobedience to make their voices heard. Actions in recent months have ranged from chaining themselves to coal conveyor belts in Sydney, to forming port blockades in the Netherlands, to scaling smokestacks in the United Kingdom.

The rise in activism reflects growing frustration against the continued, and expanding, use of coal as a source of energy. The fuel, while affordable, is directly linked to climate change and air pollution.

"What I see is - in the last year - it just exploded and went from being a sizable amount of people, several thousands of very active youth all around the country, to just hundreds of thousands of young people," said Brianna Cayo Cotter, communications director for Energy Action Coalition, a network of North American youth climate activists. "I feel like the floodgates are about to open. We have the numbers. We have the skills. We have the passion."

In Europe, where some 50 new coal plants are being planned, Greenpeace is leading a continent-wide campaign [PDF] to halt eight upcoming projects in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In the United Kingdom, plans are under way to build the country's first coal plant in 34 years. Activists have escalated their opposition to the proposed construction this year.

In the United States, a nationwide fight against 150 proposed new coal-fired power plants that began four years ago has put a serious dent in the coal industry's plans. Through the courts, government lobbying, and acts of civil disobedience, activists have helped cut in half the number of new coal power stations.

The movement achieved a major victory last week. In response to a Sierra Club lawsuit, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled that a proposed coal plant in Utah would need a plan for controlling its carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions before being granted a federal operating permit. The ruling essentially delays all such permits for the time being. "In the immediate future, no new coal plant will be moving forward," said Virginia Crame, a Sierra Club associate press secretary.

Meanwhile, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has staged campaigns targeting two of the largest funders of such coal projects: Bank of America and Citibank. Last weekend, RAN and Greenpeace organized more than 50 events across the country to protest the banks' financial support of the fossil fuel industry.

"A lot of people are jazzed up about it because global warming was such an important issue in the election on the state and federal level," said Mary Nicol, the Greenpeace student network coordinator. "The cleanest coal plant is the one that isn't built. The youth generation really understands that."

Environmental author Bill McKibben organized 1,400 simultaneous call-to-action events, known as Step It Up, in 2007. He has since founded 350, an organization that raises awareness of the 350 parts per million of CO₂ equivalent that many climate scientists consider the maximum level necessary for a stable climate.

Following a rally at the U.S. Capitol yesterday, McKibben said that plans for a fall 2008 global day of action would be announced at the climate conference in Poland next month. "Hopefully there will be rallies on every corner of the planet. We have organizers working on every continent except Antarctica," he said. "We need people to realize that coal is the dirtiest fuel on our planet."

McKibben also said he expects more acts of civil disobedience in the next year. "It'll happen. Keep your eyes open in D.C.," he said.

The Energy Action Coalition is expecting 10,000 participants at its second annual Powershift, a conference of climate workshops, lobbying, and protests in Washington in February. Similar "climate camps" have been held this past year in London, Hamburg,  and Newcastle (Australia).

The large-scale campaigns rekindle memories of effective grassroots campaigns from the 1960s and ?70s. But a saturation of information has made it more difficult now for organizers to attract attention, said Paul Wapner, director of the Global Environmental Politics Program at American University.

"There is a changing landscape in which activism in general, not just environmental, finds its expression," Wapner said. "With the Internet and all sorts of media, it's hard to figure out how one makes a difference and not just have their message get lost in the virtual world."

Regardless of whether the world is watching, more activists are risking arrest for the cause, and more support is coming their way.

In the U.K., six Greenpeace activists faced criminal charges this past summer for damaging a coal-fired power station on the Kent coast. With the support of NASA climatologist James Hansen, an Inuit leader, and other environmentalists, the defendants argued that they were acting on behalf of the world - specifically the Pacific island state of Tuvalu, the Arctic ice cap, and China's Yellow River, they said.

The jury ruled that their actions were indeed protecting property in England and across the globe. The activists were cleared of all charges.

In the United States, 11 protestors who formed a human barrier to a power plant construction site in Virginia in September faced 10 criminal charges and a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison, until a plea bargain was reached last month. Hansen again offered his support.

"If this case had gone to trial, I would have requested permission to testify on behalf of these young people, who, for the sake of nature and humanity, had the courage to stand up against powerful ?authority,'" Hansen said in a prepared statement [PDF].

Next month, Lynne Purvis will appear in court as well. She faces charges of trespassing, unlawful assembly, and resisting arrest following a protest earlier this year against the construction of a natural gas-fired power plant in the Everglades. She, too, requested that Hansen testify on her behalf, but he has yet to respond.

Stories of climate activists who have avoided punishment did not, however, influence Purvis, she said. "I honestly don't pay too much attention to that kind of stuff. My personal motivation is that whatever the consequence, it's better than the massive consequence that will be felt by the entire community and the entire planet."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

During his campaign, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama supported a global cap-and-trade agreement for regulating his nation's carbon emissions. As a result, many international observers are hoping the United States will agree to binding emissions-reduction targets at the high-profile climate change negotiations scheduled for December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Such optimism may be unrealistic, however. The ongoing financial crisis, a potential withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and an increasingly unstable war in Afghanistan will likely dominate the White House's political agenda in 2009.

If the United States does not accept mandatory emissions-reduction targets at Copenhagen, a panel of environmental leaders and climate negotiators said last week that the climate conference will be much less meaningful.

"I doubt U.S. legislation will be ready by Copenhagen," said Elliot Diringer, vice president of international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and a deputy assistant to former President Bill Clinton. "The odds of accomplishing comprehensive negotiations at Copenhagen are not very high. In fact, they're very low."

The outcome from Copenhagen will hinge in part on how quickly the U.S. Congress can pass a cap-and-trade bill, and on whether lawmakers would approve an international climate treaty before adopting domestic legislation. In 1997, when the Congress was last faced with a similar timing challenge, the U.S. Senate rejected the Kyoto Protocol in a 95-0 vote before the international treaty was even finalized.

"We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past - first working out an international climate negotiation and then returning to U.S. legislation," said Robert Orr, the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning. "It won't work."

Some of the panel's negotiators remain optimistic. Thomas Becker, chief climate negotiator for Denmark, said the financial aid package that the U.S. Congress swiftly passed in October is an indication that climate change legislation could be approved in the next year. "An aid package was passed overnight. It shows if the political will is there, you can do it," Becker said. "It's not impossible. It's a question of priority."

Quick passage of an international agreement is a challenging prospect because of the lawmaking rules of the U.S. Senate. To ratify a treaty, the legislation would require support from two-thirds of the Senate, or at least 67 votes. In comparison, only a majority in both chambers is necessary to pass a bill, and a bill requires just 60 votes to avoid a filibuster - a legislative tool that delays a vote by indefinitely extending the time for debate.

Congressional Democrats failed to pass an emissions cap-and-trade bill earlier this year. But the incoming Congress, which includes 20 more Democrats in the House of Representatives and 6-8 new Democrats in the Senate, is expected to face less partisan opposition in the next two years. In addition, current members of Congress have recently suggested more willingness to address climate change.

Some Congressmen, however, are already attempting to control expectations. Jeff Bingaman, chair of the Senate Energy Committee, suggested last week that a cap-and-trade bill may not be ready until 2010. "The reality is, it may take more than the first year to get it all done," he said, according to an Associated Press report.

Aside from capping emissions, the Obama administration is expected to act quickly on a variety of other significant climate-related measures.

Obama has suggested he would grant the state of California permission to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles under the U.S. Clean Air Act, which the Bush administration has opposed since December. The reversal would allow California, and the 16 states that have followed its lead, to cut vehicle emissions 30 percent between 2009 and 2016.

The next administration will also decide whether new coal-fired power plants will be required to control their greenhouse gas emissions in order to receive a federal operating permit. An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appeals board ruled last week that a proposed Utah power plant cannot be constructed until a regional EPA office decides how its emissions will be regulated; the gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, according to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, the board said. 

But Obama's intentions remain vague on many environmental fronts. Diplomats and environmentalists are urging the President-elect to attend next month's climate negotiations in Pozna?, Poland, to clearly demonstrate his support for a new international agreement, even though he would only act as an observer. The conference is expected to result in a draft text of the treaty.

"We hope the administration of President-[elect] Obama will come to Pozna?," said Janus Zaleski, the Polish deputy minister of environment, at last week's panel. "This will send a message to the world that the U.S. is intent in participating on an international stage."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

The world can expect energy prices to continue their generally upward spiral in the years ahead if global energy policies remain the same, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported this week.

Rapid economic development in China and India, coupled with relatively consistent energy use in industrialized nations, will likely strain the world's ability to meet a projected rise in energy demand of some 1.6 percent a year until 2030, the agency predicted Wednesday in its annual World Energy Outlook report [PDF].

The IEA significantly increased its projections of future oil costs in this year's report due to the changing outlook for demand and production costs. It now expects crude oil to average $100 per barrel over the next two decades and more than $200 per barrel in 2030, in nominal terms. Last year's forecast estimated that a 2030 barrel would amount to only $108.

"One thing is certain," said Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA's executive director, in a prepared statement. "While market imbalances will feed volatility, the era of cheap oil is over."

Oil and natural gas resources are expected to supply the world for more than 40 years at current consumption rates. But the report expressed concern that rising world energy demands will outpace production.

"There remains a real risk that under-investment will cause an oil-supply crunch in that timeframe," the report said. "The gap now evident between what is currently being built and what will be needed to keep pace with demand is set to widen sharply after 2010."

The price of meeting the world's energy demands is estimated at $26.3 trillion through 2030-an average of more than $1 trillion a year, the IEA said.

In addition to higher prices, most new oil fields are offshore or smaller than in years past, making oil extraction more difficult than ever. "Oil resources might be plentiful, but there can be no guarantee that they will be exploited quickly enough to meet the level of demand," the report said.

Demand for oil is predicted to rise from the current 85 million barrels per day to 106 million barrels per day in 2030, the report said. Due to this year's high oil prices, the predictions are 10 million barrels per day less than what was projected last year. Still, this represents an increase of 1 percent per year.

Natural gas demand is expected to grow even faster, at a rate of 1.8 percent per year. And coal demand would advance 2 percent per year on average, according to the report.

China and India are expected to account for more than half of the projected additional energy demand, and their power sectors would consume 80 percent of the additional coal. Overall, countries that are not members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a grouping of 30 industrialized economies, are estimated to represent 87 percent of the increased energy demand.

The result of this energy boom would be a steady rise in energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. The IEA said the emissions increase expected under this scenario would result in a 6-degree Celsius rise in the average global temperature by the end of the 21st century. This would likely devastate many species and coastal communities worldwide.

The report also notes that renewable energy will likely surpass natural gas to become the second-largest source of electricity behind coal sometime after 2010.

These predictions, however, are based on a business-as-usual approach to energy use. If the international community enacts "profound shifts" in energy policies, namely through an international climate change agreement, the world's unsustainable energy path may be avoided, the report said.

The IEA estimates that $4.1 trillion in additional energy-efficiency investments is needed between 2010 and 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at 550 parts per million (ppm) of carbon-dioxide (CO₂) equivalent. To reduce concentrations to a lower 450 ppm, $2.4 trillion more would be needed to pay for low- or zero-carbon power plants, and $2.7 trillion for more energy-efficient equipment.

Some climate researchers, including James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, have stated that the atmosphere needs to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at 350 ppm in order to avoid "irreversible catastrophic effects" [PDF]. The atmosphere currently contains an estimated 385 ppm of CO₂ equivalent.

Representatives from the renewable energy industry have criticized the IEA report for underestimating clean energy's future potential. The IEA projected that renewable energy, excluding hydropower, could supply 4 percent of total power generation in 2030.

"We regret that the IEA still does not fully realize the actual dynamics and economics of renewable energy," said Stefan Gsänger, secretary general of the World Wind Energy Association, in a statement. "The new World Energy Outlook may, as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, mislead policy makers to make poor decisions by not putting enough focus on renewable energy and thus slowing down the renewable energy deployment rates."

The Energy Watch Group, a German-based international network of scientists, released a report [PDF] earlier this week that predicted renewable energy could supply between 17 and 30 percent of global electricity and heat demands by 2030 if investments increased significantly.

The IEA report also calls for energy efficiency and renewable energy investments to address the current global financial crisis. Several organizations, including the Worldwatch Institute, have called for similar "Global Green New Deals," just days before leaders from the world's 20 largest economies meet in Washington, D.C., this weekend.

"We cannot let the financial and economic crisis delay the policy action that is urgently needed to ensure secure energy supplies and to curtail rising emissions of greenhouse gases," the IEA's Tanaka said. "We must usher in a global energy revolution by improving energy efficiency and increasing the deployment of low-carbon energy."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

When leaders of the 20 largest economies gather in Washington this week, a centerpiece of their deliberations should be a Global Green Deal that capitalizes on the current economic crisis to build economically and environmentally sustainable economies.

The perfect storm of today's economic, environmental, and social ravages requires a robust, multi-pronged response. Indeed, the challenge for global political leadership, including U.S. President-elect Obama, is not merely to kickstart the global economy, but to do so in a way that creates jobs and stabilizes climate, increases food output using less water and pesticides, and generates prosperity with greater equality of incomes. Successful political leaders will be those skilled at identifying synergies among today's hydra-headed problems and using them to craft powerful global coalitions from such constituencies as business, labor, and community organizations.

This broad approach will require a conceptual blueprint evocative of America's 1930s New Deal - but more audacious in scope and vision. The United Nations Environment Programme has recently called for a transformation of the global economy so that it works for the broad majority of humankind, within boundaries set by the planet's rate of resource renewal and waste-absorption capacity. This historic moment calls for not merely repairs to our hyper-productive, yet ailing, economy, but for a new approach suited to the realities of a heavily populated and environmentally stressed world - a Global Green Deal that shifts the focus from growth to development, and that is geared less to providing consumerist superfluities than to ensuring that nobody's true needs go unmet.

A Global Green Deal would have several strategic objectives:

• Transition to a renewable energy economy.

Make renewable energy sources the dominant feature of the world's energy system, and systematically phase out reliance on fossil fuels. Wind and solar technologies are not just more environmentally benign than oil, coal, and nuclear power, but also more jobs-intensive. Alternative forms of energy already provide employment to more than 2 million people worldwide, and continued rapid growth will likely multiply these numbers in coming years. 

• Launch an efficiency revolution.

Doing more with less is one of the surest paths to wealth creation, and environmentalists have a great many ideas to raise energy and materials efficiency. Indeed, some European analysts have asserted that a tenfold increase in resource productivity is possible. Transport, housing, industry, and utilities are ripe with opportunities for huge efficiency gains. A "dematerialization" of economic activity requires far less mining and logging, and thus permits a sharp reduction in their environmental impacts.

• Invest in green infrastructure.

Revolutionizing the electrical grid, creating transportation systems that are less reliant on automobiles and embrace rail and mass transit, and encouraging settlement structures that are compact, not sprawling, will stimulate economic activity, create millions of jobs, and free us of unnecessarily high levels of energy and materials use.

• Make materials circulate.

Analyst Walter Stahel of the Product Life Institute has pointed out that the front end of an economy-extractive activities such as mining, logging, oil drilling, and fishing-tends to use less labor and create more pollution than manufacturing and maintenance activities. A circular economy emphasizes durability, repairability, recycling, and remanufacturing, squeezing more value out of the resource base and generating greater employment. Companies will thrive on helping their customers derive the most functionality and service out of a product, rather than merely seeking to maximize sales.

• Work for a fairer distribution of wealth within and across borders.

According to the International Labour Organization, two-thirds of countries for which data are available underwent an increase in income inequality in 1990-2005 between the top 10 and bottom 10 percent of wage earners. Management - worker pay disparities rose to new heights. CEOs at the S&P 500 leading U.S. firms averaged $10.5 million in 2007, 344 times the pay of the average American worker. (And the top 50 U.S. hedge- and private-equity fund managers averaged $588 million each, some 19,000 times as much as the average U.S. worker.) Just three decades ago, CEO pay averaged only 30 to 40 times the pay of the average worker.

Translating these goals into reality will require smart regulations, tax shifts, subsidy reforms, mandates, incentives, and an ecologically-inspired industrial policy. A powerful first step is for governments to ensure that prices "tell the ecological truth" - ending the free ride that fossil fuels have enjoyed vis-ā-vis renewables and ensuring that the air and water pollution, health impacts, and climate destabilization inherent in burning oil, natural gas, and coal are fully reflected in the price of energy.

Carbon taxes and similar measures accomplish this goal. Governments can use the resulting revenues to lighten the tax burden falling on labor in the form of payroll taxes. Such an ecological tax shift, which has been carried out on a limited basis in Europe, would encourage job creation. Other measures might include tax credits for companies that reduce their energy and material intensity or that step up their recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing activities - with double the tax break to those firms that use their savings to hire more employees.

A second idea is to use government procurement power to create large-scale markets for green technologies and employment generation, overcoming barrier-to-entry and chicken-and-egg problems that often bedevil innovative approaches. From the local to the national level, governments around the world spend trillions of dollars on public purchases every year. Intelligent use of procurement programs, coupled with expansive consumer product labeling and information campaigns, can play a critical role in ramping up economies of scale that render green products cost-competitive.

Public works programs, a third tool in government's toolbox, may be useful in both urban and rural settings, at least on a temporary basis. In rural areas, they could focus on reforestation and measures to halt soil erosion and adapt to climate change. Coupled with the promotion of organic agriculture as well as land reform, such programs can help create more resilient rural economies. In urban areas, they could focus on efforts to establish green belts, rehabilitate park and other green areas, modernize infrastructure, and build or expand pedestrian zones and biking lanes.

Fourth, retrofitting existing buildings will slash heating and cooling needs and would be a boon for the world's 111 million construction industry jobs. Germany's experience - government and private investments to weatherize apartments created or saved 140,000 jobs in a five-year span - is instructive. But a Green Deal would go far beyond housing for the world's middle class to combine greening measures with efforts to provide decent housing for those marooned in the world's teeming slums.

Strategic investments in greening the auto industry could also pay major dividends. Having focused on churning out gas-guzzling SUVs, some of the major manufacturers, like GM, are now struggling for survival. Governments could inject resources into the industry under the condition that R&D and commercialization efforts are unequivocally devoted to developing high-efficiency vehicles, while mandating that new models achieve fuel efficiency on an ambitious upward sliding scale. In recognition of the "built-in" consumption levels of existing inefficient fleets and the normally slow turnover rate, governments could pair such efforts with programs that buy up inefficient vehicles.

However, transportation policy needs to look beyond the auto industry and commit to a major revival of inter-urban rail and urban mass transit networks. Expanding and modernizing such systems and their infrastructure would offer an alternative to a car- and airplane-focused approach, stimulate innovation, reduce air pollution, and provide large numbers of well-paying manufacturing jobs.

Finally, the financial industry's rescue effort should be leveraged to turn the financial sector from a purveyor of the debt-driven consumer juggernaut into a force for green development. Such a re-orientation would seek to overcome the problem of high up-front costs for more efficient appliances and equipment by developing sustainable credit programs. In a greening economy, advantageous credit terms would be made available for weatherizing houses, installing solar panels, purchasing more durable and efficient goods, and other transactions that promise green dividends. So-called "location-efficient mortgages" are being offered in a small handful of U.S. cities. In essence, they offer preferential mortgages in areas that are well-connected to public transit and walkable. Used widely, they can counteract the sprawling settlement structures that are at the base of automobile dependency.

Where might the money come from?

The origins of the current crisis are found in the "overgrowth of financial assets relative to growth of real wealth," as University of Maryland professor Herman Daly has put it. Nonetheless, a global credit crunch threatens to starve even legitimate business and household needs and could trigger mass unemployment. This raises a key question: can capital for a global green rescue effort be mobilized?

Despite the global economic contraction, the answer may well be yes. The $700 billion committed to the U.S. financial bailout, plus additional large sums marshaled by other countries, suggests that governments can raise sizable sums of capital in emergency situations. Any number of large pools of capital might be tapped to fund a Green New Deal, if the right incentives were set in place. Here are a few ideas:

• Military spending - The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that world military spending in 2007 ran to a record $1.3 trillion - 45 percent higher in real terms than a decade earlier. The United States alone is spending about $700 billion per year on maintaining the Pentagon and conducting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a world with no major power conflicts, a substantial portion of these budgets would be better dedicated to a Global Green Deal.

1. Sovereign wealth funds - Oil rich nations and governments with large trade surpluses held $2-3 trillion dollars in wealth in 2008. Why not design incentives for government holders of such capital to invest in a Global Green Deal?

• Tobin Tax - Trade in the world's currencies amounted to $3.7 trillion daily in 2007. Why not institute a Tobin tax - a levy named for its earliest proponent, economist James Tobin - as a way to raise Green Deal revenue? Even a minimal tax on foreign exchange transactions could bring in many billions of dollars, as well as dampen destabilizing currency speculation.

• Fossil fuel subsidies - These are estimated at $150-$250 billion each year. Oil companies are highly profitable, and their product is toxic to climate stability. Why not remove government supports and pledge those funds to a Global Green Deal? And a tax on "windfall" oil profits, carbon taxes, or proceeds from the auction of carbon allowances could all serve the same dual purposes.

• Insurance industry - The cost of weather-related natural disasters is on the rise, and is considered a "strategic threat" to the insurance industry. Between 1980 and 2004, the cost of such events totaled $1.4 trillion, of which $340 billion were insured. The industry may have a strong incentive to contribute to the climate stabilization piece of a Global Green Deal.  

• Treasury bonds - Bonds are commonly used for a variety of purposes, and could be dedicated to green investments. For instance, China's government has supported hundreds of energy conservation projects since 2006 in part by issuing treasury bonds. 

• Private Capital Flows - The energy industries alone invest several hundred billion dollars each year in fossil fuel-related projects; a share of that capital could be redirected to energy efficiency and renewable energy initiatives.

Moving a Global Green Deal agenda is not the work of a single leader or even a small group of governments. Instead, it will require an overhaul of global governance at least as great as the one that occurred after World War II, when the United Nations and the Bretton Woods financial and economic institutions were founded to establish a new era of global stability. Today, a new international policy architecture is needed that includes issues such as climate change and other environmental issues that are central to the health of the global economy.

This includes a fresh direction for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to promote green and equitable development, and innovative arrangements for cooperative green technology development and sharing of best sustainability practices. In January 2009, a group of governments will establish the new International Renewable Energy Agency. IRENA is to become a key driver of the large-scale adoption of renewables around the world. Paired with an organization to promote international cooperation on energy efficiency, IRENA could become the core of Green Deal global governance.

This is a tall order in this severely challenged and constrained world, but the G20 meeting later this week is the ideal venue to begin this process. It is typically during times of crisis, not contentment, that humanity rises to new challenges. The present circumstances likely present a brief window of opportunity-a chance to shuffle the deck and create a more just and green civilization for a crowded world. Let the work begin.

Gary Gardner and Michael Renner are senior researchers with the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C.

For Additional Information:

Worldwatch Institute's Green Jobs Web page.

Michael Renner, Sean Sweeney, and Jill Kubit, Green Jobs: Working for People and the Environment, Worldwatch Paper 177 (Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, October 2008). 

Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2008: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008).

United Nations Environment Programme, "Global Green New Deal - UNEP Green Economy Initiative," 22 October 2008.

Al Gore, "The Climate for Change," New York Times, 9 November 2008

Updated version 

At a time when more than a third of the planet's species are threatened with extinction, the resources that are needed for effective conservation far exceed the money available for the cause.

As a result, large conservation groups have turned to corporate donors for more of their funding over the past decade. The financial support often compensates the groups for their help in lessening the environmental impact of a corporation and its supply chain.

The strengthening of corporate ties, however, has fueled a debate within the environmental movement about the role of industry in conservation work.

The groups accept the funding according to internal guidelines that they say prevent corporate donors from directly influencing the integrity of specific programs.

Yet at a time when more companies are trying to be "green," several grassroots leaders say the relationships allow companies to "greenwash" their public images. Their concern is that the true benefactors of the partnerships are not imperiled species or ecosystems, but the corporations themselves.

Conservation Budgets Grow

In recent years, conservation funding has increased considerably. Among the three largest conservation organizations worldwide - The Nature Conservancy (TNC) [PDF], the WWF Network [PDF], and Conservation International (CI) - combined revenues in 2007 exceeded $2 billion, more than double the revenues in 2000.

The three groups received at least $35 million more from their corporate partnerships last year than in 2003, although their annual reports do not clarify all sources of corporate funding.

The conservation groups point to a variety of partnerships that have been critical in spurring corporations to lessen the environmental impacts of their operations and products. Examples include efforts to source sustainably harvested wood, use carbon offsets, boost resource efficiency, and make other supply-chain improvements.

A partnership between The Coca-Cola Company and WWF, for instance, led the company to announce last month that it would improve water efficiency 20 percent by 2012 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5 percent in its facilities in developed nations.

"We're seeing many more examples of different kinds of collaborations with groups, from a cross-spectrum of the environmental movement, with companies in different industries," said Justin Ward, vice president of business practices at CI's Center for Environmental Leadership in Business. "But we want to be careful not to blend our name and affiliation with a company if there's not real action to back that up."

Grassroots leaders say that while the collaborations focus on a corporation's global environmental footprint, impacts at the local level often continue to be ignored.

Antonio Claparols, president of the Ecological Society of the Philippines, said that in his country, several international conservation groups are working alongside large mining companies that have degraded the land and allegedly violated local villagers' rights.

Since the partnerships began, he said, several of his Filipino colleagues have lost their respect for the large NGOs. "They have no credibility on the ground," Claparols said.

IUCN and Shell

The debate came to a head in October at the World Conservation Congress, the world's largest gathering of conservationists, held this year in Barcelona. The host, IUCN, was accused of risking its reputation over a five-year collaboration it launched with the energy company Shell International in 2007.

Many in the wider environmental community argue that Shell, despite its recent support of renewable energy, carries a significant legacy of environmental degradation and human rights abuse. In Nigeria, oil spills and gas flaring have polluted many parts of the country. Shell is also defending accusations that it was complicit in the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian activist who campaigned against the company until the government executed him for alleged murder. The case will be heard by a U.S. District Court in February.

The public connection between Shell and IUCN - a respected, 60-year-old conservation organization - has frustrated several of the environmental groups that are part of IUCN's global network. "People are very upset about how companies use IUCN's name on their promotional material" said Barbara Bramble, a senior international affairs advisor at the U.S-based National Wildlife Federation. "It drags IUCN into the dirt."

Led by Friends of the Earth International and other international environmental groups, members of the World Congress called for IUCN to terminate its Shell agreement. "A long-term partnership agreement with Shell is not the right way to influence Shell," a Friends of the Earth statement said. "There are strong reputational risks."

Claparols used harsher language to describe the partnership. "The Union is being held hostage by extractive industries," he said. "I don't mind dialoging with industry.... But when you put the name of IUCN with Shell, it's like you're endorsing everything Shell does."

Not all grassroots conservationists agreed with ending the contract. Shahid Sayeed Khan, director of Pakistan-based Indus Earth, said dialogue between environmental groups and corporations is essential to prevent widespread industrial degradation. "No question that the Shell experience in the past is not comparable to anything IUCN supports. But people change, institutions change, attitudes change," he told the Congress.

IUCN warned its members that ending the Shell relationship could threaten conservation programs. Moreover, breaking such a contract prematurely may be illegal. "In case this agreement is terminated, other businesses will hesitate to engage with IUCN," a statement to the Congress said. "This will greatly compromise the abilities for IUCN to raise money and for businesses to be engaged with conservation activities." 

NGOs Vote Against Shell Deal

For the Congress to terminate the Shell contract, IUCN's governmental and NGO members would have both had to agree to the action. The measure received a 60 percent vote from NGOs, but fewer than 20 percent of governments were in favor.

The controversy was recognized by IUCN's leaders during the Congress's closing ceremony. President Ashok Khosla encouraged IUCN members to act as watchdogs, in addition to scientific experts, to ensure corporate partners do not take advantage of their collaborations.

"We have considerable consensus that the Union must engage with corporations, large, medium and small," he said. "However, the terms of such engagement must be such as to lead to positive conservation outcomes, and ensure that at no time is IUCN's integrity or capacity to fulfill its mission compromised in any way."

The clash at the Congress was atypical in a community that generally seeks to avoid public criticism. Despite persistent concerns that corporate partnerships create conflicts of interest for environmentalists, many current and former employees of the large conservation groups cannot speak freely about these relationships, according to Christine MacDonald, author of Green, Inc: An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad. "These big conservation groups control so much of the funding...so people are reluctant to speak out," she said.

The IUCN-Shell dispute also suggests a divide between the large international conservation groups and smaller groups at the grassroots level and in developing countries.

"There is always a little tension in the NGO community because everyone is focused on what their priority is, advancing their mission," said Suzanne Apple, vice president of business and industry at WWF-US. "The best thing we can do as an NGO is to be...open about our work with businesses...and what impact that has on others."

Full disclosure: The Worldwatch Institute is a member of the IUCN network.

Correction: The original version of this story mistakenly reported that an IUCN World Congress motion to terminate an IUCN contract with Shell International was sponsored by Paris-based Pro-Natura International. In fact, Switzerland-based Pro Natura, a member of Friends of the Earth International and founder of IUCN, sponsored the motion.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

With the election of Barack Obama, the United States and the world expect a new direction in the fight against climate change.

The choice of Senator Obama - an African-American born in Hawaii, schooled in Indonesia and the United States, and seasoned while fighting for tenant's rights in Chicago's South Side - reflects the diversity that defines America. But it was his well-reasoned approach to policy and messages of hope that won voters - qualities that many say the U.S. government abandoned during George W. Bush's tumultuous administration.

The same values that earned Obama keys to the White House are vital to address the most challenging threats to global sustainability. An international climate change agreement will rely upon American leadership, and the many issues such a treaty involves - population growth, resource depletion, economic disparity - call for international problem-solving and a worldwide commitment to change.

Environmental leaders in the United States and abroad quickly suggested that the election reflected the American people's desire to reverse President Bush's damaging climate change policies. "Today's landslide election of Barack Obama and pro-environment candidates across the country signals a strong rejection of the failed energy policies of the last eight years and a historic mandate for large-scale, transformational change," said Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth - U.S.

Yet it was the economy that overwhelmingly dominated voters' minds. More than 60 percent said it was their most important issue, according to exit polls. "Except for younger voters, I'm not sure the environment played such a big role," said Riley Dunlap, an environmental sociologist at Oklahoma State University.

Although climate change was rarely a major campaign issue - questions of carbon reduction levels or renewable energy policies were sparsely debated - several energy policy issues became constant components of campaign speeches. Republican candidate John McCain advocated offshore drilling and nuclear power as paths toward energy independence. Obama, a Democrat, countered with a $150 billion plan to support energy efficiency and renewable energy.

While climate change may not have dominated voters' decisions, Obama's comprehensive energy strategies likely influenced his image as an agent of change. "There's every reason to suggest Obama's commitment to energy policy, renewable energy, and conservation was an asset," Dunlap said.

Aside from the presidential election, voters broadly supported Congressional candidates who advocated greater action on climate change. Among the Democratic Party's gains in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, at least 92 of the 116 candidates endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) were victorious.

"With strong new leaders like these, we expect to pass significant global warming and clean energy legislation in the next year," said Gene Karpinski, president of the LCV, an environmental group that campaigns for politicians with the best environmental track record.

With Democratic control of the White House and Congress, policies such as a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, a federal renewable energy portfolio standard, higher fuel efficiency standards, national energy-efficient building codes, and a long-term extension of renewable energy tax credits are all likely.

The election, in combination with a slight rise in oil prices, is already affecting the alternative energy market. The Guardian reported that stock values jumped 30 percent for Solar Integrated Technologies, 22 percent for Renewable Energy Corporation, and 16 percent for wind turbine manufacturer Vestas.  

"With an administration recognizing how important [renewable energy] is, I think that the level of investment both domestically and around the world will go up exponentially in the next few years, just because it's sound economics," said David Hales, president of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.

A true indication of the White House's intentions will be Obama's upcoming Cabinet selections. Environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. and former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty are rumored as being among the leading candidates for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator.

Hales, who was director of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Global Bureau during the Clinton administration, said a strong environmentalist appointed to lead the EPA may be less indicative, and meaningful, than whom Obama chooses to lead the Treasury Department or Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. These departments would also be involved in a climate change solution, and they may have greater influence on environmental policies around the globe, he said.

"If Obama appoints a U.S. trade representative who perceives his/her mission as making the world safe for the dollar, then that's a sign that the consistency of the overall Obama strategy is beginning to fall apart," said Hales, a former Worldwatch Institute fellow. "It's much more important to have someone who understands that economies are based in part on a sustainable relationship with the basic resources that underlie the economy."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwath.org.

The agency, known as IRENA, will serve as a global cheerleader for clean energy. It plans to offer technical, financial, and policy advice for governments worldwide, according to a joint announcement from Germany, Spain, and Denmark - the project's leaders.

Renewable energy is on the rise worldwide as governments attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create domestic energy sources. Despite a variety of international organizations that are helping with the clean energy transition, IRENA's leaders said no single agency addresses the local, national, and international needs of both developed and developing nations.

"IRENA aims to become the main driving force in promoting a swift transition towards the extensive and sustainable use of renewable energy worldwide," said Hermann Scheer, general chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy and a champion for the agency since 1990, in a prepared statement. "There exist international agencies for fossil and nuclear energies, but none for renewables. IRENA will close this gap."

Scheer, a Social Democratic member of the German Parliament, led his government to commit to IRENA's creation in 2006 - arguing that it was a necessary balance to the International Atomic Energy Agency created in the 1950s.

The international organizations that currently focus on renewable energy include the International Energy Agency (IEA),  World Bank, Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), Renewable Energy and Energy Efficient Partnership (REEEP), and several United Nations agencies.

Despite the large number of clean energy organizations and networks, most energy funding supports the fossil fuel industries, IRENA's founders say. Development aid leaders often cite the higher initial cost of technologies such as wind or solar in their decision to fund cheaper energy sources. Fossil fuel energy such as coal-fired power plants, however, warms the climate and can damage local environments.

"While conventional energies enjoy political privilege, including large amounts of public money for research and development, military protection of the supply chain, and $300 billion in global annual subsidies, renewable energies are discriminated against," said Bianca Jagger, chair of the World Future Council, at a meeting of IRENA organizers in April. "The IEA only recently showed interest in renewable energy sources. Other existing networks have no mandate to advise governments on the accelerated introduction of renewable energy."

Binu Parthan, deputy director of programs for REEEP, said IRENA's global focus would be helpful for renewable energy development. But he was doubtful whether the agency could address the challenges of technology transfer or funding shortfalls all on its own. "One suggestion to IRENA  is rather than create an entire new organization, it could serve as an umbrella of sorts, bringing together the work of those other institutions."

Parthan added that an organization focused solely on renewable energy may further marginalize discussions on energy efficiency. "Having an organization looking only at renewable energy, the supply side, is not optimal. We need to look at energy efficiency on the demand side, as well," he said. "That needs to be brought into the picture."

At a conference in Madrid last month, IRENA's 51 participating nations agreed that the agency's first projects would be presented in January, at the formal launch of IRENA. In the meantime, details such as the organization's headquarters, leadership, and funding still need to be finalized.

The involved nations currently include nearly all of Europe as well as Australia, Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.

In the past year, global renewable energy sources have increased dramatically. More than 250 gigawatts of capacity, excluding large hydropower, exists globally. Clean energy investments surpassed $148 billion in 2007, a 60 percent increase from 2006, according to the U.N. Environment Programme.

Several countries in charge of the IRENA initiative, including Germany and Denmark, are home to some of the world's leading producers of renewable energy technologies.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

The director of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Pascal Lamy, said earlier this month that negotiations for a global free-trade deal are urgently needed to restore confidence in shaken financial markets.

Renewed talks could jumpstart efforts to remove barriers to trade in a wide range of economic sectors, helping to stimulate markets, Lamy said. Sectors being targeted for greater liberalization under the WTO include natural resources such as fisheries and timber as well as agriculture, services, and industrial goods.

Discussions on natural resources trade would take place within the WTO's negotiations on so-called "Non-Agricultural Market Access" (NAMA), a series of talks launched in 2001 at the organization's Fourth Ministerial Meeting in Doha, Qatar. But progress in this and other key trade areas has come to an effective standstill since high-level negotiations broke down in Doha and more recently in Geneva this July.

Free-trade enthusiasts tout the benefits of NAMA's push for the unhindered movement of goods and resources across national borders. But some environmental groups are concerned that the negotiations could pose a serious threat to ecological, social, and economic sustainability.  

According to these organizations, including Friends of the Earth International, Greenpeace International, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, reducing and eliminating barriers to trade, including import and export tariffs as well as non-tariff barriers, could override legislation critical to environmental protection. They worry that measures such as the certification of wood products, restrictions on trade in chemicals, and precautions against invasive species could potentially be considered non-tariff barriers to free trade.

A 2004 Friends of the Earth Europe report charges that legislation regulating food, fisheries, minerals, timber, and electronics, as well as chemical testing and recycling standards, could all be challenged as barriers to trade. According to the report's findings, governments that have raised questions about the compatibility of health and environmental standards with trade rules include Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Turkey, and the United States. 

But past experience indicates that submitting a complaint to the WTO does not necessarily mean that national environmental legislation will be overturned. In 2006, for example, the European Union presented a legal complaint to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body against Brazil's restrictions on imports of retreaded (used) vehicle tires. Brazil countered that the restrictions were necessary to protect the country's health and environmental standards. The Dispute Settlement Body ultimately voted in favor of Brazil's position.

Environmentalists also worry that greater market access for environmental goods could increase the exploitation of key natural resources. The forest, fisheries, minerals, and aluminum sectors are at particular risk because they are designated for so-called "zero-zero liberalization," a bargaining process whereby one country eliminates its trade barriers in exchange for another country to do the same. Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, and Thailand have all tabled zero-zero proposals for fish products, and New Zealand and Australia have presented such proposals for forests.

Carin Smaller with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy says a range of government and independent research on the potential impact of trade liberalization on fisheries and forests has found that "further liberalization will have a negative impact on these sectors." Case studies from the United Nations Environment Programme, for example, conclude that fisheries liberalization would be detrimental to the economies and marine diversity of Argentina, Mauritania, and Senegal, she says.

A Greenpeace International study released last year concludes that "while consumers in developed countries should see some short-term economic benefits of less expensive seafood, these will be short-lived because further liberalization will only accelerate resource depletion through continued over-fishing, especially in developing countries."

On the other hand, trade liberalization could benefit fisheries by acting as a forum where countries can present proposals to prohibit harmful subsidies that distort fisheries production and trade. Subsidies to the fishing industry total some $15-20 billion a year and come in the form of direct payments to boat owners as well as tax write-offs to developing-country governments that grant permission to industrial-country fleets to fish in their waters. These subsidies often provide incentives for the industry to exploit already-depleted fisheries. 

At the 2001 WTO Ministerial Meeting in Doha, talks on fish subsidies were integrated into the official trade negotiations, giving governments the opportunity to present alternative proposals. Several delegations have since submitted proposals to the WTO that have successfully eliminated distorting subsidies.

Proponents of NAMA say liberalization could also bring much needed foreign investment to developing countries. This increased investment would generate revenue that, if distributed properly, could foster employment and provide financial support to innovative environmental programs, such as projects to sustainably manage forests and fisheries, market affordable organic products, and develop renewable energy technologies.

As world leaders focus greater attention on the role that trade liberalization could play in boosting the global economy, divergent viewpoints are emerging within the WTO, particularly between industrialized and developing countries. "The text of the NAMA paper would need to be drastically reworded before it becomes acceptable to not just India, but developing countries in general," said India's commerce secretary, Gopal Pillai.

Ambika Chawla is a State of the World 2009 fellow at the Worldwatch Institute. She can be reached at achawla@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

The office is becoming a major driver of climate change.

Despite ongoing efforts to improve energy efficiency in the workplace, the world's growing reliance on the Internet is leading to a rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy required to power all the world's computers, data storage, and communications networks is expected to double by 2020, according to a new McKinsey & Company analysis.

The rising emissions are due largely to greater Internet use in China and India, where coal-fired power plants generate the majority of the countries' energy. China accounted for 23 percent of global emissions related to information technology (IT) last year. Worldwide, IT systems' emissions were equivalent to the annual carbon dioxide emissions from more than a half-billion automobiles.

The predicted emission growth comes after years of increased energy demand from the world's computer servers. The amount of electricity required for servers doubled between 2000 and 2005, according to a Stanford University study. The world's 30.3 million servers and other IT systems now account for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the McKinsey report said.

North America's office technology caused one-fourth of the world's IT-related emissions in 2002. China has since passed the region to become the world leader in both overall greenhouse gas emissions and emissions attributed to IT.

China and the world's emerging economies, including India, Brazil, and Indonesia, are expected to increase their IT emissions 9 percent annually in the years ahead. By 2020, McKinsey predicted IT would be the cause of 1.54 gigatons of greenhouse gases, or 3 percent of global emissions. If these calculations are accurate, the carbon footprint of IT would be comparable to that from aviation.

The McKinsey study also noted that the same technology that has increased the workplace's carbon footprint can reduce global emissions. "Smart controls" - sensors that monitor and help avoid unnecessary electricity - are already being installed across the world. "The same way IT improved labor productivity in the ?80s and ?90s, IT can improve energy productivity today," said lead author Giulio Boccaletti, a McKinsey consultant.

In order for the emission - and financial - savings to occur, office managers must be willing to pay for the initial efficiency changes. Businesses, however, are often geared toward finding new sources of revenue rather than ways to improve infrastructure.

"Energy efficiency, until very recently, is something people haven't really seen as a fundamental business driver, even though it can create enormous returns," said Boccaletti, a former climate scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Many offices and homeowners already appear to be switching to one of the simplest energy-efficiency improvements: compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). According to a recent Worldwatch Institute analysis, global CFL sales more than tripled from 750 million units in 2001 to 2.4 billion in 2006, based on data from Chinese manufacturers.

Electric lighting consumes 19 percent of the world's electricity grid production. If all the incandescent light bulbs in the United States were replaced with CFLs, the country would avoid 158 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, according to an industry estimate, the equivalent of removing more than 30 million cars off the road.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

Washington, D.C.-As capital markets around the world are being rescued by national governments, global unemployment is reaching record levels and the labor market is expanding by tens of millions of workers each year. In the face of the twin challenges of stagnating economies and climate change, stimulating green industry is more important than ever, according to a new assessment released by the Worldwatch Institute.

"It's time for a bailout for the environment: one that creates jobs, is global in scope, and can help rebuild communities amidst the ashes of the current economic crisis," says Michael Renner, co-author of the report, Green Jobs: Working for People and the Environment,  written in collaboration with Sean Sweeney and Jill Kubit of Cornell University's Global Labor Institute.^*

Green jobs are not only about renewable energy employment. Reengineering buildings, transportation systems, agriculture, and basic industry all have the potential to create jobs that help reduce humanity's carbon footprint and pro