Energy policy is an essential element of strategic direction for any company, and top management must take full ownership over it and communicate it throughout their organization.
Cost-effective energy efficiency programs can reduce utility costs and climate change impacts while being fair for all consumers.
Energy efficiency
Energy efficiency is one of the key tools we have at our disposal in our fight against climate change, as it reduces fossil fuel usage, air pollution levels, electric grid strain and household energy bills. Achieved through various measures – some voluntary such as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program which has saved billions on household bills; other legally mandated such as European Union Energy Labelling Directive and its requirement that new buildings must become nearly zero energy.
Other initiatives include increasing fuel economy of cars and trucks as well as reducing building material carbon embodied emissions, helping reduce waste while improving energy security. Such measures contribute significantly towards meeting energy policy goals such as providing clean, affordable, sustainable energy to all individuals worldwide and combatting climate change while simultaneously supporting economic development.
Renewable energy
Renewable energy provides an environmentally-friendly alternative to fossil fuels and helps mitigate climate change. Renewables include solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal heat and plant materials as sources for creating electricity – thus decreasing carbon dioxide emissions and other air pollution while providing more affordable power solutions.
Renewable energy offers many advantages; among them are its non-polluting operation and virtually inexhaustible resources. Renewables don’t produce greenhouse gases or other pollution during operation and they can help address energy poverty in rural and remote regions of developing nations. Unfortunately, many renewable projects involve using land or natural resources, leading to environmental degradation; in addition, producing renewable energy can produce emissions at a significantly lower level than nonrenewable ones; depending on its source it may even create local jobs while decreasing dependence on fossil fuel imports.
Fossil fuels
Fossil fuels (Coal, Oil and Gas) account for roughly 80% of global energy needs and contribute to everyday products like plastics and steel production. Unfortunately, they’re non-renewable resources whose combustion contributes to climate change.
Folse fuels when burned produce Carbon Dioxide which acts as a greenhouse gas and contributes to global warming, as well as other air pollutants like Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, particulate matter, mercury as air pollution sources. Air pollution can damage human health as well as aquatic ecosystems through excessive nutrients that lower oxygen levels as well as forest and crop damages caused by air pollution.
Fossil fuel extraction causes environmental destruction and local community harm; for instance in the US this often falls disproportionately upon communities of color and low-income groups who live nearby fossil fuel plants. Therefore it is crucial that subsidies for fossil fuels be phased out quickly – there are currently over 260 subsidies worldwide which include tax breaks on consumption as well as production for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel products.
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is widely used for electricity generation, as well as industrial and chemical processes. Due to its low carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear energy provides an effective energy solution in combating climate change while producing more electricity per square metre than any other renewable source.
However, many existing nuclear power plants are struggling financially and their owners have been lobbying for subsidies to stay open. While doing this may increase carbon emissions and costs relative to replacing them with renewables as soon as possible.
Nuclear facilities are vulnerable to catastrophic accidents that can pollute large areas with radiation, with catastrophic results for human and non-human life lasting decades or centuries. Unfortunately, injustices related to nuclear power are frequently ignored in our current socio-political system that prioritizes growth over the social protection of Indigenous Peoples and disempowered communities – which often disproportionately afflicts Indigenous Peoples and disenfranchised communities.