John Edwards on energy policy

Citizens for Global Solutions : The energy crisis is serious. Due to global warming, we could live on a dramatically different planet within decades. Climate change could cause hundreds of millions of people to suffer water shortages and tens of millions to be flooded out of their homes annually. By 2080, hundreds of millions could starve. Meanwhile, America’s need for imported oil forces it to rely on unstable and even hostile countries.

Our generation must be the one that ends our nation’s dependence on oil and ushers in a new energy economy. If we harness American ingenuity to reach for transformative change, we can emerge from the crisis of global warming with a new energy economy that stimulates innovation, brings the family farm back to life, and creates jobs in America’s farms and industries.

I have proposed a market-based approach to ending global warming and leading the world to a new global climate change treaty. I will set an economy-wide limit on the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050. At the same time, a cap-and-trade system will use market forces to reduce pollution in a cost-effective and flexible manner with the sale of permits financing investment in a New Energy Economy Fund.Second, I will create a new energy economy and 1 million new jobs by investing in clean, renewable energy. The New Energy Economy Fund would jumpstart clean, renewable, and efficient energy technologies, taking into account both energy and economic needs. These steps, similar to those championed by the Apollo Alliance initiative, will spark innovation, create a new era in American industry, and bring new life to our family farms.

Third, we need to find a way to use coal without heating the planet. As president, I will require that all new coal-fired plants be built with the required technology to capture their carbon dioxide emissions, so plants built today will be able to permanently and safely store their carbon emissions tomorrow. I am committed to investing $1 billion a year in research and testing to jumpstart the means to store large amounts of carbon dioxide safely underground.

Finally, I will meet the demand for more electricity in the next decade through efficiency, instead of producing more power. It is often cheaper and cleaner to save energy rather than produce more of it.