Keynoted by Alliance Honorary Vice-Chair Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Alliance Vice-Chair Bob Dixon of Siemens, the session brought to light a number of initiatives that warrant recognition.

Rep. Markey called attention to a number of forward-thinking policy initiatives, such as the Home Star legislation recently passed by the House, and the bill he cosponsored with Rep. Waxman (D-Calif.) last summer, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which proposes that by 2016, all buildings constructed in the U.S. must be 50 percent more energy efficient than they were in 2010.

Policy achievements aside, Rep. Markey is convinced that society can achieve even better energy efficiency, noting “the transfer of wealth” to the Middle East that results from our country’s inability to power itself independently.

He commended the award winners as being on the cutting edge of energy efficiency. “You are basically fighting the most powerful force in the world — inertia.”

Next, Alliance to Save Energy President Kateri Callahan presented the Recognition of Service Award to David Parker, soon-to-retire president of the American Gas Association (AGA). Parker’s effort to push energy efficiency to the forefront of AGA’s agenda has been for the benefit of consumers. As Callahan noted, he developed the idea for the Alliance’s “The Power is in Your Hand” campaign, which helped thousands of homeowners learn to use energy more efficiently.

Award Winners

The afternoon’s first award was given to Dr. Joseph Oteng-Adjei, minister for energy in the Republic of Ghana, who promptly credited the people of Ghana for the country’s energy efficiency gains, while noting that international cooperation between the U.S. and Ghana has helped inspire long-term energy efficiency projects, such as switching out 6 million incandescent bulbs to CFLs.

“We are grateful,” said Dr. Oteng-Adjei.  “We are a small country, and make sure we optimize our limited resources with energy efficiency. We are grateful for the skills and knowledge that will support these projects. We pledge that we will take due course and move straight to that course and never, never look back.”

Representing the best of Latin America’s energy efficiency efforts this year was Hon. Jimena Bronfman, vice minister of Energy in Chile. Her country’s strategy for energy efficiency involved taking a close look at best practices in places such as California and Vermont, said the vice minister.

Recently, the Chilean government financed several projects, such as thermal retrofitting, to show consumers the benefits of energy efficiency while also educating people about energy savings and demonstrating that a little investment can go a long way.

Dr. Ajay Mathur, director general of the Government of India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency, accepted an award for spearheading the energy efficiency movement in India, where it is helping to improve the quality of life for India’s billion-plus citizens through economic growth.

Dr. Mathur says he and other energy efficiency advocates are optimizing value for money. “We are nudging people towards energy efficiency. We have learned from people all around the world. And our own country has provided support and leadership. “

On behalf of the King of Sweden, the European award winner, H.E. Jonas Hafstrom, ambassador of Sweden to the United States, remarked that energy efficiency fits precisely in the scheme of Sweden’s top priorities, which include climate change.

Moreover, the country’s efforts in the area of sustainable city planning, alternative fuels and smart grid technologies have been to the benefit of Sweden’s economy, which has grown by 54 percent in the process of reducing its energy use. Additionally, Sweden is the leading country in renewable energy, the ambassador noted, with 43 percent of its energy consumption fueled by renewable energy.

Putting Energy Efficiency to Work

Alliance Honorary Co-Chair Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) described real energy efficiency initiatives happening in his home state, such as new lighting systems in Arkansas’ many poultry farms, and a recovery act-funded weatherization project slated to benefit about 250,000 homes next year.

Said Senator Pryor confidently, “Efficiency is something at our nation is starting to understand.

The senator also outlined a legislative project he’s been working on – the Building STAR program. Despite the Senate’s busy schedule, Pryor hopes his colleagues will pass the initiative, which offers rebates for energy-efficient building equipment, products and services.

Building STAR aims to provide jobs for the 1.7 mill construction workers out of work, and reduce energy waste in the building sector, which accounts for 40% of U.S. total energy waste. Says Pryor, the bill has received favorable reviews so far, as many come to understand its potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, save millions of dollars and reduce carbon emissions.

Act Now

Calvin Dooley President & CEO American Chemistry Council, detailed his industry’s action-oriented approach to the efficiency question: “We are not waiting for Congress to act,” he said, explaining that energy efficiency is the ‘prevention’ that is worth a ‘ton of cure’.

Referring to the Carbon Life Cycle Study produced by McKinsey Global Institute, Dooley noted that chemistry “can play an important role in the developments and innovations of products and technologies that can empower consumers and manufactures to reduce their carbon emissions – and a lot of that is the direct result of energy efficiency.”

Form lithium ion batteries to thermal roof coatings, insulations, PVC water pipes and CFLs, chemistry, said Dooley, is behind the products, innovations and technology that are contributing to significant reductions in energy use.

Dooley also cited the significance of chemistry in a variety of industries – such as residential and commercial buildings, utilities, and transportation – and called for smart policies that include energy efficiency provisions while maintaining the global competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing.

Speed and Scale

Assistant Secretary Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy Cathy Zoi adhered to a simple message in her talk: that we need speed and scale to make energy efficiency go big. “If we get ourselves organized…we can save $220 billion a year.”

The reasons, she said, are three-fold: we need to save money, clean up pollution, and stop arguing about clean energy policy and climate policy: “We need to reach agreement nationally and internationally. The most fundamental things we can agree on is energy efficiency…[it] has to become a national norm and global norm.”

Zoi talked through a couple of federal programs and policies, most notably Retrofit Ramp-up, which was introduced by Vice-President Biden a few months ago. By creating sustainable business models for locations all around the country, Retrofit Ramp-up is ensuring that retrofitting becomes the norm in the United States.

Zoi also discussed the Home Star legislation recently passed by the House, which offers point-of-sale residential rebate program for consumers.

Zoi is excited about this program: “Not only because it will create easy access for rebates to people around the country, but because it will create jobs in construction. People who want to do work and work that needs to be done.”

She encouraged EE Global delegates to consider this conference an opportunity to discover ways to make energy efficiency “go big” – through energy-efficient technologies, systems and policies.

Think Big and Deliver Big

Closing the Opening Plenary was the Hon. Gina McCarthy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

McCarthy encouraged delegates to “think big and deliver big.” Today’s leaders – such as President Obama, U.S. DOE Secretary Steven Chu and Cathy Zoi – are tuned into the big potential of energy efficiency, and the fact that “energy efficiency is an essential tool to meet our climate and energy goals,” as McCarthy described it.

As for U.S. EPA’s role, she said that her office needs to make energy efficiency work within the regulatory structure while also recognizing states’ efforts in EPA’s voluntary programs.

McCarthy explained how EPA’s rules are intended to not only protect U.S. citizens from the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, but also encourage a common sense understanding of energy efficiency within business practices.

The light duty vehicle rule, for example, challenges big manufacturers to use energy efficiency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while another rule addresses the toxic emissions that come from nearly 200,000 unregulated boilers. Said McCarthy, “[EPA] saw a tremendous opportunity here….you want to generate investments in the most efficient boilers so that the old ones get switched out.”

By creating rules and parameters, EPA inspires companies to innovate and deliver energy-efficient technologies for a sustainable, clean energy future.

“We can have a future where people believe that efficiency is good for them,” said McCarthy. “We have a future in which we can attack climate change in a way that helps people understand it is good for them in their lives, that it can grow the economy and make their lives better – and that we can achieve this future if we can actions if we work together.”

Read about the first half of the Opening Plenary session.

If I had to draft the agenda of the next EU-U.S. Summit, I would put energy efficiency first.

Why? The first reason is obvious. Promoting energy efficiency is as much a “green” necessity as much as an economic one on both sides of the Atlantic.

The other reason is less well known. The United States and the EU could learn a lot from each other by working more closely together.

Energy Efficiency Technologies for a Low-Carbon Economy

Energy efficiency technologies and services offer a powerful means to modernize and decarbonize our economies on both side of the Atlantic. The diffusion of energy efficiency also gives a boost to the dissemination of other green technologies.

For example, energy-efficient grids will accelerate the connection of new energy sources, such as windmill parks, and give end-consumers the chance be proactive in reducing their consumption of energy. The design of enhanced energy-efficient cars will be crucial to the development of new fuel technologies such as hydrogen, biofuel or electric technologies.

To paraphrase Darwin, energy efficiency is a kind of missing link which would help to make the transition to a low-carbon economy. A missing link which would force economic agents to “trim the fat” and focus on innovation so that we could achieve competitiveness gains with a large pay back in the coming years.

Debates on Both Sides of the Atlantic

However, obtaining those benefits will not be easy either in the United States or the EU. Strangely, the public debate around energy efficiency in the United States and in Europe sounds quite familiar – e.g., How sure are we that these new jobs would not be exported? How can we spread expansive technologies and services when the upfront investment is so high?

An enhanced dialogue between Europe and the United States on this issue would be therefore highly valuable, especially since the approach taken in the United States is complementary to the one taken in Europe.

The United States typically has taken a bottom-up approach which has led to profound changes in the behavior of some businesses – for instance, energy regulators in some states such as California have decoupled energy utilities’ revenues from the amount of energy they sell. This arrangement has created a fundamental conflict between a utility’s interest in selling more energy and the public interest in conserving it. These energy utilities are now the main promoters of energy efficiency in these states.

In Europe, policy makers tend to take a top-down approach; public authorities have often developed sets of standards or labels which have accelerated the transition from many energy-intensive products and practices. An illustration is the Eco-design Directive which hasted to a whole range of products based on their life cycle analysis being banned.

The Solution: Meet in the Middle

Both of these approaches have strengths and weaknesses. The EU top-down approach has the merit of politicizing the issue and gives a real public legitimacy to energy-efficient behavior from the average EU citizen. The U.S. bottom-up approach has the advantage of being more business friendly and of deploying into a more important number of areas, applications and sectors.

The main lesson of these differences is that EU and U.S. stakeholders still have to learn more from each other. Policy makers, members of civil society and businesses need to understand what works and what does not work on both sides of the Atlantic so as to implement new ideas which would achieve the energy efficiency transformation of our economies.

President Obama was careful not to undermine the Home Star program by referring to its adopted media name, ‘Cash for Caulkers.’ That’s because this consumer rebate program, in comparison with its automotive counterpart, isn’t simply meant to stimulate the economy while promoting energy efficiency; this one’s about creating jobs, too.

From manufacturers on down to builders, the Home Star program will infuse jobs into a lackluster building industry that has seen better days. The eye-catching figure: 25 percent unemployment among construction jobs. But here’s the good news:

In Georgia alone, where the press conference was held, Obama cited 300 transportation projects currently in the works. And to create the workforce that can do it, he’s looking to put millions more in technical colleges like the one he toured today in Savannah.

Despite its comprehensive goals, the Home Star program’s roots are embedded in one key word: home. This is not only where the heart is, but the heat, too. So for homeowners looking to buy new furnaces or better-insulated windows, there’s a rebate for that. Need a better HVAC system? There’s a rebate for that, too. In fact, a large number of energy-saving home improvements are among the list for eligible rebates.

Taking a cue from grade school incentive programs, Home Star offers two levels of rebates: Gold Star and Silver Star. The following is a description of Silver Star rebates from the White House:

Consumers looking to have simple upgrades performed in their homes would be eligible for 50% rebates up to $1,000 – $1,500 for doing any of a straightforward set of upgrades, including: insulation, duct sealing, water heaters, HVAC units, windows, roofing and doors.

The maximum amount of rebates per home is $3,000.

The Gold Star rebates are performance-based. This is comprised of “a whole home energy audit and subsequent retrofit tailored to achieve a 20 percent energy savings in [consumers’] homes.”

According to Obama, the end goal of all these rebates is to “foster a secure economic future for middle class families.” He admitted that in order to do so, some upfront costs are unavoidable, as with all major system overhauls (he mentioned education and healthcare, specifically).

How will these rebates reach the hands of consumers? Directly, in many cases, say White House officials. At the point of sale or “the point of engagement with a contractor” the consumer will have access to the rebates.

In total, the program is estimated to cost $6 billion. But the government expects a quick trickle effect to spur job creation.  A home audit encourages contractors; when contractors buy materials they need retailers; and retailers get their supply from manufacturers.

To those afraid of investing in an expensive, energy-efficient heating system, Obama says fear not. With the Home Star program, consumers “will get their money back.”

Learn more about energy efficiency retrofits at EE Global’s Executive Dialogue Session 3A: Buildings, Breaking New Ground: Economic Recovery Through Efficiency Retrofits.

Lisa Jacobson, President, Business Council for Sustainable Energy

Having just returned from a meeting today with Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing at the U.S. State Department focused on U.S. expectations for the climate change negotiations in 2010, I wanted to reflect on the central role that energy efficiency and other existing clean energy technologies must play as we develop and implement a post-2010 international climate change agreement.

While there are mixed views on the outcomes of the Copenhagen climate change talks last December, several key outcomes were achieved through the negotiation of the Copenhagen Accord:

•    Agreement by many nations that the increase in global average temperatures should stay below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
•    A platform for pledges of greenhouse gas reduction commitments and mitigation actions by major emitting nations in the 2020 timeframe. To date, the pledges represent 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
•    Significant pledges on financing for emission reduction and adaptation activities — $30 billion over the next three years and mobilization of $100 billion by 2020, in the context of a global agreement.
•    Establishment of a new technology mechanism that would accelerate deployment of clean energy and adaptation technologies to developing nations.

Energy efficiency has a key role to play to unleash the potential of the Copenhagen Accord and should be a focus on the 2010 negotiations, which will culminate in December in Cancun, Mexico.

To start, the global goal of not exceeding 2 degrees Celsius sent a clear signal to governments and the private sector and will shift investment into low-carbon technologies and applications – energy efficiency is a fast, cost-effective solution that will be a primary option in the near-term.

Second, the focus of the accord on the 2020 timeframe to reduce global emissions will spur national governments to adopt policies and create incentives for energy efficiency.

Third, energy efficiency will be a primary focus of near-term mitigation funding – especially in the building sector, which accounts for 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.  It is important that financing be directed at cost-effective, commercially available technology to generate real emission reductions by 2020.

Fourth, the new technology mechanism envisioned under a post-2012 framework will seek to improve energy efficiency in developing nations by creating the capacity for the transfer of existing energy-efficient technologies.

The upcoming EE Global conference will assist policymakers and the business community understands the central role that energy efficiency will play in the coming decade and identify the policy tools and incentives needed to set the United States and other nations down a cleaner and low-carbon pathway through energy efficiency.

Brad Penney, Director of Government Relations, Alliance to Save Energy

Last month’s climate change negotiations in Copenhagen left many feeling that the international community had dropped the ball on addressing the world’s rising greenhouse gas emissions and the need for clean energy in the growing global economy.

Forecast of U.S. Climate Change Legislation: Cloudy

Stateside, the political climate doesn’t look as good as it once did for action on legislation that would cap U.S. emissions, dashing hopes that America might lead other nations to take the same step.

It is encouraging that President Barack Obama expressed strong support  for comprehensive energy and climate legislation in his State of the Union address on January 27. Earlier this month the National Journal Experts Blog speculated on whether there was still hope for a cap-and-trade bill this year.

Though there is still time for Congress to forge a bi-partisan compromise on climate legislation in this session, most experts believe energy and climate legislation would have to be completed in the first six months of this year, given the mid-term elections, leaving open the possibility that the world may wait years more to see a new international agreement on climate change.

A Silver Lining?

However, a delay in global action on climate change would not mean that international progress on clean energy will halt indefinitely.

Lost in the plethora of instant analysis about COP15 is the fact that it spurred a number of related agreements between nations that will initiate crucial investment in the clean energy around the world.

This means that the pace of progress on energy efficiency and renewable energy will increase, not decrease, between now and the next UN climate negotiations – and every investment made now will make action on climate change more feasible down the road.

Getting Climate REDI

Among these agreements are several that focus on deploying energy efficiency around the world. During the December climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced the launch of the Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (Climate REDI), a five-year initiative of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF).

The initiative is designed to quickly promote and deploy clean energy technologies to fight energy poverty in developing countries, complementing longer-term climate change mitigation aid that was pledged. The United States has committed $85 million to Climate REDI, of which $35 million will go to programs to deploy LED technology, incentivize efficient equipment and appliances, and provide a clearinghouse of resources on clean energy. Other nations will contribute a total of $250 more.

Stay Tuned

Of course, this agreement and others like it alone will not come close to solving the massive climate crisis that confronts the world. But I think they will both plant the seed of energy efficiency in communities that are just beginning to become major energy consumers, and lay the groundwork for global action on climate change.

As Anjali Jaiswal wrote on NRDC’s Switchboard blog, “While the Climate REDI fund and the U.S. midterm financing commitment for mitigation and adaptation is clearly not enough to fully support a global energy transformation, it is a starting point.”

What is your forecast for international action on climate change and clean energy? Where will we be one year, or even five years from now? What needs to change? Send us your comments!

Kateri Callahan, President, Alliance to Save Energy

For many of us, 2009 ended on an ambiguous note. At home, much of the positive momentum for climate legislation at the start of President Obama’s administration buckled under the weight of contentious debates around health care and unemployment.

Abroad, the world released a collective “sigh of disappointment” on December 18th, when the Conference of Parties to the 15th United Nations climate conference (COP15) “took note” of an accord that fell far short of what the planet needs to mitigate or adapt to the effects of global climate change.

On the brighter side, bi- and multi-lateral agreements among the U.S. and other large polluters (which are built around deployment of energy efficiency and clean energy technologies) reached before and during the Copenhagen summit will have a tremendous, positive impact not just on the world’s climate but on its economy and security as well.

As I attended meetings, conversed with other observers and watched the negotiations unfold in Copenhagen’s Bella Center (the site of COP15) last month, I was reminded of the hard truth about climate change: that for many countries and for billions of people around the world, the threat of climate change is not only real, but worsening as each day.

The Accord

Notwithstanding this enormous concern, economic growth and national security imperatives (understandably) compete to shape countries’ policy agendas.

Viewed from the enormity and complexity of these challenges and competing interests, then, the deal President Obama brokered between nearly all the member countries of the United Nations is encouraging: it requires emissions reductions from all signees; it urges more stringent targets than did previous treaties; and it guarantees a substantial flow of assistance funds to developing nations.

Advancing the Copenhagen Accord to forge legally binding, effective consensus between the world’s emitters will be no easy task; and doing so by the next world gathering in Mexico at the end of 2010 will take enormous work, cooperation and innovative thinking.

Energy Efficiency is Key

And, at the risk of “preaching to the choir,” I cannot help but note that a primary key to success in this most important global endeavor will be to deploy – quickly and at scale – energy efficiency.

Energy efficiency can provide many of the short-term answers that the world needs to reduce emissions right now – while boosting both developed and developing economies. I found it exceedingly troubling, therefore, that the topic of energy efficiency was largely absent in the side events that took place at COP15, with the exception of events hosted by the Alliance and partners.

So while the question no longer should be whether energy efficiency can meet the challenge, but rather how to invest in it and where to deploy it so that we may tap into its full potential and promise. We will need to work hard to insure that this is a conversation held by the negotiators who will gather at the next world negotiations in Mexico at the end of December, 2010.

Next Stop: EE Global

EE Global, I believe, represents the best opportunity for the global efficiency community to build the global case for rapid and widespread deployment of energy efficiency as the first solution to climate change.

The foundation of the EE Global series is to define the potential for energy efficiency; to benchmark progress being made around the world to deploy this resource; and to bring to the fore the best practices, programs and policies for global implementation of energy efficiency.

At EE Global, we can hone the messages, arguments and develop a clarion call to energy efficiency action to be delivered to the world leaders meeting later in Mexico.

This year, the Copenhagen Accord – its goals and its shortcomings – offers EE Global participants more than just a conversation topic. It presents us with a new opportunity to which we can apply the strategies and ideas developed since EE Global’s inaugural event in 2007.

For us, emissions reductions targets and investments are part of the lexicon of energy efficiency.

Why Are You Coming to EE Global?

I am therefore confident that this year’s conference will serve as the critical follow-up event to COP15 and precursor to COP16. Because when it comes to climate change – and stronger economies, and greater energy security! – energy efficiency may not be the only answer, but it certainly is the cheapest, quickest, and fastest.

So readers, let me ask you: given the outcomes of COP15 and the hopes for an accord in Mexico, what are the next steps to be taken by the energy efficiency community? How can we leverage energy efficiency to move above and beyond the targets of the Copenhagen Accord? And, if you are attending EE Global 2010 – and I hope you are! – what aspects of global climate change mitigation are you most looking forward to learning about?

That’s it for now. I look forward to continuing this conversation online and then in Washington, DC, May 10-12!