Klaus Lackner Quotes

The challenge of pollution and global warming is no longer the science, or the rate of innovation, but the rate of implementation: We have the clean solutions; now let's bundle them and install them.

The challenge of global warming should stimulate a whole raft of manifestly benign innovations - for conserving energy and generating it by 'clean' means (biofuels, innovative renewables, carbon sequestration, and nuclear fusion).

If every country committed to spending 0.05 per cent of GDP on researching non-carbon-emitting energy technologies, that would cost $25 billion a year, and it would do a lot more than massive carbon cuts to fight warming and save lives.

Enlightened self-interest from those involved in hydrocarbons should lead to the support of technologies enabling the clean use of hydrocarbons, such as carbon capture and storage, and not to the defence of deniers and cranks.

The move to a zero-carbon future is unstoppable.

Everything from the infrastructure we build to the products we use must now be aimed squarely at building a zero-carbon world.

If we become better with carbon capture technology, I think we can start a global trend toward carbon awareness.

An increased push for energy efficiency, renewable energy technology, electric mobility - along with the growing digitalization movement and a universal carbon pricing structure - would speed up the carbon-free future and the rise of a global middle class we desperately need. We can and must all do our part.

Fighting climate change isn't just an obligation we owe to future generations. It's also an opportunity to improve public health - and drive economic growth - in the here and now.

People of conscience in our leadership in Washington have been scared off by the right and the fossil fuel lobbies. They won't even use the term "sustainability" or "climate change" in an energy bill, which is ludicrous on its face. It completely ignores the elephant in the room that we're all dealing with. The average American doesn't even believe climate change is real, they think it's all a hoax.

I believe we should reframe our response to climate change as an imperative for growth rather than merely being a way of being green or meeting environmental commitments.

Since stepping down as laboratory director in 1999, I have devoted an increasing fraction of my time to international issues. I am involved with energy, environment, and sustainability issues, particularly as they involve new energy sources free of greenhouse gases.

Job creation is a choice. Investing in cleaner, greener technologies that allow us to strike a more sustainable balance with the other living systems of this earth - this, too, is a choice.

The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels. We need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution.

I think politics today is all about false choices: You can have a robust energy economy and a challenged environment, or a great environment and no economy. That's a false choice. You can do both.

Talking nice about sun and wind and green jobs is just greenwash.

We all know that we have to get off of fossil fuels. And we know that the world is going in that direction. And we have to do it fast.

For centuries, America has led the world on a long march toward freedom and democracy. Let's reclaim our clean energy leadership and lead the world toward clean energy independence.

Many of the technologies we've invented are necessary to keep 6.5 billion people alive. We can't go back from that, so we need to decarbonize really rapidly.

I want to see us move from a fossil fuel economy to a renewable economy - if not in my lifetime, then in the lifetime of my children.

Working together, we can meet our shared goal to combat climate change. From harmonizing vehicle emissions standards to using our trading relationship to boost investment in clean energy, the actions the United States and Canada take together will help both nations meet international goals.

The higher the stakes, the more responsible we have to be. It was with this in mind that I began to build my Green Economy and Climate Agenda.

We have been developing an ever closer relationship with China on climate change for many years which has led to collaboration on carbon trading, offshore wind development, on low-carbon buildings, on nuclear energy, and on carbon capture and storage - to name just some of the ways in which we're working together.

If we got more efficient with electric grid capacity, we would substantially reduce our carbon footprint, and people would be likely to copy us.

Americans know our only response in the face of mounting risks from climate change must be the swift transition to a clean energy economy. We do not have the luxury of burying our heads in the sand.