To the editor:
While politicians and government officials the world over spin their wheels and seem to accomplish very little around clean energy issues, the private sector has responded rapidly with an ever-increasing flow of clean energy innovation.
The private sector is not waiting around for politicians and government officials to agree on questions of policy or which country or countries should be the first to cut more deeply into its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The private sector simply sees a need and an opportunity and is responding with concrete action.
Whether it’s more efficient wind turbines, cheaper solar panels, or new biofuels, the marketplace is driving a groundswell of change that’s leaving politicians in the dust. That’s not to say clean energy policies, such as we have in British Columbia, have not resulted in private-sector clean energy investment and created many new jobs. They have, and to a considerable degree.
However, globally it’s the private sector that is leading the way on clean energy not governments. The innovation taking place in the clean-energy sector may even ultimately render political wheel spinning irrelevant because clean energy solutions are becoming more diverse, more readily available and more cost-effective.
If governments can do one single thing to help this process along, it would be to make sure barriers to private-sector innovation are minimized and then stand aside while the marketplace performs its magic.
Christopher Law
Coquitlam
