This week, the youth energy and climate movement achieved a victory when Johns Hopkins University — one of the largest research universities in the world — announced a major new climate and energy plan, resulting in large part from student activism and leadership.

Announced by JHU President Ron Daniels, the plan includes (1) a $73 million energy investment to cut university carbon pollution over 50% below projected levels by 2025, (2) a new Environment, Sustainability, and Health Institute to promote new research and education in climate, energy, and sustainability, (3) a new Master’s Degree in Energy Policy and Climate, and more.

“Global climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges,” declared President Daniels in his statement. “Facing this challenge head-on is our shared responsibility, especially as residents of the developed world. But universities have a special role in our society and a special responsibility. We are institutions that discover, that educate and that, often, set an example. When it comes to global climate change, Johns Hopkins will be a leader in all three.”

The plan results from recommendations by the JHU President’s Task Force on Climate Change, formed by former President Brody largely in response to student activism by the Hopkins Energy Action Team (HEAT) in 2007. HEAT began as a handful of energy activists, and over the course of a year, it grew to represent over 20 student groups, 2500 students, and dozens of faculty, constituting one of the largest concerted student movements in Hopkins history. As a former JHU student, I had the honor of co-founding and directing HEAT with my colleague Blake Hough, and I served on the Task Force to help develop its recommendations, which included the former JHU Provost and current U.S. Under Secretary of Energy at the Department of Energy, Dr. Kristina Johnson.

After the completion of the Task Force recommendations in March 2009, students responded with a large sign-on letter to express their support to President Daniels. “We are writing to urge you to drastically accelerate Johns Hopkins’ movement toward sustainability and expand our efforts to mitigate global climate change and build a clean energy economy,” they wrote. “Leading society to live sustainably and reverse global climate change is a task that fits squarely into the university’s educational, research, and public service missions. Hopkins cannot remain a leading world university in the 21st century without addressing this defining global challenge—and we stand only to gain by acting now.”

These efforts, and the overall Johns Hopkins climate and energy plan, can serve as a model for other universities and colleges around the country. Higher education has critical role to play in accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy. Universities perform 56 percent of the nation’s basic research, a fundamental building block of the technological innovation necessary to make clean energy cheap. They are the training ground for the next generation of scientists, engineers, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. And universities and colleges are the launching ground for numerous entrepreneurial ventures to bring those innovations to the marketplace.

Today, faced with the defining challenges of climate change and the global clean energy race, students must work with their college administrators to secure greater educational resources related to clean energy technology and policy, including better curriculum, professors, classroom and laboratory resources, career development opportunities, support for student entrepreneurship, and research. Every significant institution of higher education in the country should have an energy-related institute that incubates cutting-edge education, research, and innovation. Students are flocking to schools with the best clean-tech programs, and university administrations are increasingly paying attention.

The federal government must also implement a higher education strategy for clean energy innovation and education, including an effort on par with the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which invested billions in education to help regain U.S. leadership in science and technology after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. That is why an alliance of student and youth-led groups has launched the ReEnergyse Campaign to mobilize and empower young people to advance the Obama administration’s RE-ENERGYSE education proposal through Congress in 2010. RE-ENERGYSE needs a strong base of support to pass Congress, and as the primary stakeholders in the program, young people can be particularly influential in organizing a coalition of supporters and directly voicing their concerns to members of Congress.

As American students, we can change the course of our institutions and communities. We can change the course of our nation. And at this moment of challenge, we can achieve the energy revolution our world needs.

It’s official: “cap-and-trade is dead” in the United States. The frank declaration was made by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham during a private meeting with environmental leaders at the weekend. The Washington Post report that the Senators spearheading national climate legislation have rejected an economy-wide cap-and-trade scheme. Senators Lindsey Graham, John Kerry (Democrat), and Joe Lieberman (Independent) are “engaged in a radical behind-the-scenes overhaul of climate legislation” and are “preparing to jettison the broad ‘cap-and-trade’ approach that has defined the legislative debate for close to a decade.”

The collapse of cap-and-trade in the United States has implications for Australian climate policy, making the Rudd Government’s mission to pass a cap-and-trade scheme even more difficult. The Australian Senate has twice rejected Labor’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and is set to reject the bill for a third time in May. Unlike the previous rejections, the stakes are higher this time around. A third strike for the proposal just months out from a national election would be a demoralising blow for the Labor Party.

The Rudd Government faces a tough political environment. The Opposition will use the US Senate’s abandonment of economy-wide emissions trading to attack the Government. Tony Abbott has shown considerable political nous by betting correctly that the US Congress would not pass emissions trading legislation in the near term. This foresight allowed the Coalition to corner Labor by proposing a suite of “direct measures” to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions. By staking out the logical alternative to carbon pricing measures, the Coalition hopes to position Rudd as a policy copycat or worse—incompetent.

The Greens add another layer of political complexity for the Government. Labor can only win Greens support for the CPRS by agreeing to substantial amendments, but Labor are too risk averse and evidently uncommitted to climate change to make the deal. Similarly, Labor could throw their weight behind the Greens’ interim carbon-pricing measure, but the move gives the minor party a much needed boost heading into the election and inadvertently bolsters the Coalition’s claim that carbon pricing is taxation by another name. In any case, the Government would still need two additional votes for either measure to pass the Senate.

While the Labor Government has the trigger for a double dissolution election they won’t risk one. On one hand, Tony Abbott is polling better than expected and Labor hasn’t quite figured out how to deal with the new Opposition Leader. On the other, public support for the CPRS has declined and the Government fears a scare campaign based on the easy-to-understand “ETS = great big tax” message.

By far the worst option for Labor is to abandon the CPRS entirely. The Prime Minister simply can’t walk back his “greatest moral challenge of our time” statement he made as Opposition Leader and reiterated in his pre-Copenhagen speech to the Lowy Institute. This move would make the Prime Minister and his government look weak and unprincipled in the eyes of the public. Labor is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

While the death of cap-and-trade in the US presents an obvious challenge to Rudd and Labor, it is also an opportunity. The recent development provides the PM with an escape route for his troubled emissions trading scheme. With consistent messaging citing the changes in US climate policy as the rationale for a new approach, Labor can avoid Opposition attacks. The key to success rests on presenting a credible alternative policy with an equally powerful political narrative.

Adopting a nation-building framework for climate change policy is the Government’s best way forward. In addition to providing a potent political narrative to frame their agenda, the approach deals with the technological problem at the heart of climate change. Australian renewable energy advocate Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) has recently released the executive summary of its Zero Carbon Australia 2020 plan—a detailed blueprint for Australia to transition to 100% renewable energy by the end of the decade. BZE rightly emphasise the need for public investment in critical renewable energy projects as integral for reducing the nation’s contribution to climate change.

Beyond Zero Emissions spokesperson Mark Ogge concedes the Zero Carbon plan is expensive. The plan would require investment in order of $35-40 billion per year for a decade—the equivalent of the 2009 economic stimulus package each year to 2020.  Some commentators, politicians, and vested interests will no doubt argue that this level of investment is difficult. Nonetheless, BZE are on the right track. Their cost estimates are based on the ambitious goal to generate all of Australia’s energy from renewable sources by 2020. Implementing the measures over a longer timeframe would make the plan more economically viable, more politically palatable, and still deliver considerable carbon emissions reductions.

The death of cap-and-trade in the US can make Rudd’s job harder, or could be used as the rationale for a new nation-building approach to climate policy. Let’s hope for the latter.

The climate blog It’s Getting Hot in Here featured an excellent post on the framing of climate change at the weekend. Taj Schottland, a senior at the College of the Atlantic, has developed three frames for communicating climate change and associated policies to political conservatives. To appeal to conservative audiences, Schottland recommends:

1. Replacing the term ‘climate change’ with ‘climate security’ to better explain the ways in which the changing climate adversely affects America’s economic health, national security and prosperity.
2. Highlighting clean ‘energy advancement’ as a way to avoid the negative connotations associated with reducing emissions and by implication economic growth.
3. Emphasising the objective of cap-and-trade policies to ‘harness the power of the market.’

Regardless of whether you agree with Schottland’s suggestions, it is encouraging to see that climate advocates are examining the ways in which climate change is framed. And perhaps more importantly, that they are developing new frames to communicate the impacts of the phenomenon to a wider audience. Given that the construction of one capture-all frame is virtually impossible, we need multiple frames to appeal to people across the political spectrum, and build the broad public support needed for government action.

How to frame policy responses effectively is another challenge for climate and renewable energy advocates. Take the Australian Government for example. It frames its climate change policy as a carbon pollution problem and has proposed a cap-and-trade scheme as the appropriate policy response. Unfortunately for the Government, the policy is poorly understood by the public and has failed to gain the support necessary to pass the Australian Senate.

I have presented ‘nation building’ as an alternative way to frame climate and energy policy in Australia.

The idea of nation building is not unique but Australians have a particular admiration for government projects that strengthen the nation. Investment in renewable energy and associated enabling infrastructure are central to our response to climate change and its ability to be framed in terms of nation building is a strategic leverage point. It is capable of winning a greater degree of public support than the complex market mechanism the Rudd Government—and many climate advocates—seek to implement. This approach demonstrates the potential to mitigate and adapt to our changing climate without the phenomenon being the central frame for policy responses.

An American version of the approach is most visible in the work of progressive think tank the Breakthrough Institute, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, andothers who present a global ‘clean energy race’ as a national challenge worthy of national attention. This strategic lever is reminiscent of the USA/USSR ‘space race’ of the 1960s. The ‘race’ narrative guides action by drawing attention to the important role of public investment, and America’s ability to develop advanced technologies to overcome the Soviet challenge. The clean energy race appeals to those who want the United States strive towards greatness and have a keen sense of national competitiveness. Engaging in a clean energy race will require the US to invest in deploying clean energy and fully utilise its capacity for innovation.

Of course, the clean energy race is more than just an intelligent narrative. It is a reality. A recent report by the Breakthrough Institute and Information Technology and Innovation Foundation finds that the United States is lagging behind Japan, South Korea and China on several key measures of clean technology competitiveness. The potential for gaining public support and action from Congress is greater with the clean energy race narrative than policies centred on reducing carbon emissions.

Getting the United States to engage in the clean energy race is a win win in terms of climate change. It will ensure the increased innovation and deployment of clean energy, decarbonising our global economy and reducing the price of renewable energy for all.

Published by On Line Opinion, Australia’s leading e-journal of social and political debate.

Recently, the Australian Greens challenged the Rudd Government to “break the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) deadlock” by implementing an interim price on carbon. The move no doubt stunned many with its pragmatism and has since won the backing of the government’s former chief climate change adviser Ross Garnaut. While the move may give the Greens a PR boost, the proposal will work to strengthen the Coalition’s recent framing of carbon pricing as a “great big tax”. This of course has implications for Labor’s climate policy agenda in an election year.

The Greens proposal would impose a $20 per tonne “price” on carbon emissions for two years, starting from July this year. According to the Greens, the interim measure would allow the nation to start addressing its ballooning carbon emissions and provide the Parliament with enough time to resolve differences over the government’s emissions trading legislation. While this sounds like a sensible proposition, it plays into Abbott’s strategy of framing Labor’s emissions trading scheme and other carbon pricing measures as a “great big tax”. Without the presence of carbon trading, Coalition MPs will have an easier time convincing the public that “carbon pricing” is in fact a form of taxation.

New polling data from Essential Research sheds light on the Coalition’s CPRS strategy. According to the poll, economic management and protecting Australian jobs and industries are considerably more important to voters than protecting the environment and addressing climate change. Framing the CPRS as a “great big tax” that is bad for our economy and bad for jobs allows the Coalition to appeal to concerns among the electorate while drawing on their electoral strength on economic management to attack Labor’s credentials on jobs and industry.

The Essential Report (PDF 116KB) also suggests that Labor is loosing the CPRS messaging war. Even after several years of public debate establishing emissions trading as central to tackling climate change, only 30 per cent of those polled considered a price on carbon as “crucial to addressing climate change”. This figure is woefully low considering the groundwork put in by the government and supporters of emissions trading. In contrast, the Coalition, which has been branding emissions trading a tax for several months, would be happy to learn that 45 per cent of respondents agreed with them – that the CPRS is a tax.

So what options are there for the Rudd Government? How can they navigate the new political terrain and avoid a damaging election year defeat on climate policy?

Rudd’s options are limited. Tony Abbott has claimed “direct policy measures” to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions, so the government risks giving the new Opposition Leader a policy victory if it reorients its climate policy away from emissions trading and towards alternative measures. Adopting the Greens interim pricing measure will serve the Coalition’s attempt to brand “ETS as tax”. Alternatively, Labor can submit CPRS to the Senate for the third time, but it is certain to be rejected unless they adopt Greens amendments, which they won’t.

The best way forward for the government is to implement direct measures but reframe them as part of a nation building agenda, denying Abbott the policy victory he is searching for. The government can explain its decision to put the emissions trading agenda on hold by pointing the Coalition’s obstructionism, the failure of the Copenhagen summit to produce a meaningful agreement, and recent political developments in the United States that will almost certainly delay cap and trade passing the Congress.

By framing the new climate agenda as a nation building enterprise comparable to the Snowy Mountains Scheme is good politics and good policy for the Rudd Government. Drawing on its political legacy as the party of nation building, Labor can tap into the high priorities of the electorate and put Australia on track to reducing its contribution to climate change. The government can demonstrate the benefits of sustainable development by building a renewable electricity grid, funding adaptation projects and investing in clean technology R&D and deployment.

This approach to climate policy will support Australian jobs and industries, including the burgeoning clean energy sector, and build the foundation of a clean energy economy. Additionally, the approach will allow Labor to capitalise on its lead in the Essential Research poll as the best major party for jobs, industry, environment, and climate.

So what are the chances of a nation building initiative that requires billions of dollars of investment winning public support? Recent polling on Tony Abbott’s “green army” proposal estimated to cost $750 million a year provides some idea. Abbott’s promise to fund a large-scale project to improve the health of the Murray-Darling Basin was supported by 59 per cent of respondents and opposed by a mere 15 per cent (26 per cent were undecided). The result shows that the public is willing to support investments in projects that deal with environmental challenges of national significance. The popularity of economic stimulus measures that helped Australia stave of recession last year and the fact that $43 billion the government will invest over eight years in the national broadband rollout has escaped widespread public criticism, further support this assessment.

Ultimately, the government taking an investment-centred approach to climate policy will lead to debate about how to fund the initiatives in the long run. And such a debate can be used to legitimise carbon-pricing legislation in the future. Central to this, is the question of whose responsibility it is to pay for such measures. Is it the responsibility of all Australian citizens and businesses to invest our common wealth in climate change mitigation and adaptation, or is it just the responsibility of polluters through carbon-pricing mechanisms?

The Labor Government now faces a choice. It can adapt its climate policy to take advantage of the political realities of 2010, or face a third rejection of its CPRS in an election year.

The initiative was originally proposed by President Obama in his April 2009 speech to the National Academy of Sciences, which he said would inspire and train young Americans to “tackle the single most important challenge of their generation — the need to develop cheap, abundant, clean energy and accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.”

If appropriated by Congress, RE-ENERGYSE will be coordinated by the Department of Energy (DOE) and National Science Foundation (NSF), beginning with an initial investment of $74 million in clean energy-related education at universities, community and technical colleges, and K-12 schools. This will include a new $50 million program within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (see full proposal), a $5 million program in DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (see full proposal), and a $19 million program within NSF (see overview and fact sheet). A summary of each program is included below. DOE’s well-known Solar Decathlon is also proposed to become part of RE-ENERGYSE in FY2011.

This proposal comes after Congress rejected the original RE-ENERGYSE proposal in the administration’s FY2010 budget request, despite support from over 100 universities, professional associations, and student groups. The administration was forced to reduce its request from $115 million to $74 million — an unfortunate reduction, especially given the nation’s lagging position in STEM education and the global clean-tech industry — but the program is a very important step toward a full federal clean energy education initiative. Despite the current budgetary environment, the administration sees RE-ENERGYSE as a significant priority for supporting the nation’s clean energy transition and improving U.S. competitiveness in this sector. As the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy wrote in its proposal:

“In order to make the leap in global energy technology leadership, the U.S. must also make the leap in energy education… This effort will help universities and community colleges develop cutting edge programs, with redesigned and new curricula to produce tens of thousands of other highly skilled U.S. workers who can sustain American excellence in clean energy in industry, trades, academia, the Federal government, and National Laboratories.”

Indeed, universities and colleges have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy and reclaiming U.S. competitiveness in the global clean-tech race. Universities perform 54 percent of the nation’s basic research, a fundamental building block of technological and scientific development. Universities and colleges are the training ground for the next generation of scientists, engineers, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. And universities are the launching ground for numerous entrepreneurial ventures to bring those innovations to the marketplace.

College students have a unique opportunity and an essential role to play in advancing this initiative. RE-ENERGYSE needs a much stronger base of support to pass Congress this year, especially in the current budgetary environment, and as the primary stakeholders in the program, students can be particularly influential in organizing a coalition of supporters and directly voicing their concerns to members of Congress. That’s why Americans for Energy Leadership, Energy Crossroads, Associated Students of Stanford University, Scientists & Engineers for America, Breakthrough Generation, and a growing number of youth-led groups around the country are leading a student mobilization behind RE-ENERGYSE and working to advance larger federal energy education policy to build on this important program. See more at www.leadenergy.org and stay tuned!

Summary of RE-ENERGYSE Programs:

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy summarizes its program as follows: “RE-ENERGYSE will develop leading edge undergraduate and graduate programs; help between 3,000 and 6,000 highly educated scientists, engineers, and other professionals enter the clean energy field by 2016; and approximately 7,000 to 13,000 professionals by 2021. By 2016, efforts will result in the development of approximately 75 community college and other training programs to equip thousands of technically skilled workers for clean energy jobs. By 2016, thousands of U.S. residents and students will be educated about clean energy technologies leading and cost saving benefits [from energy efficiency].”

DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy summarizes its program as follows: “This program will provide important educational support to bolster nuclear engineering and science programs at U.S. universities, which supports continued use of nuclear power… RE-ENERGYSE supports university nuclear engineering programs through scholarships and fellowships. These fellowships will complement existing Federal efforts and will help ensure that the next generation of scientists and engineers are available to support existing and future nuclear energy generation capacity and provide necessary innovation… In FY 2011, the RE-ENERGYSE program plans to fund approximately 88 one-year scholarships and 30 three-year fellowships to students enrolled in nuclear energy-related fields of study of disciplines at U.S. universities and two-year colleges.”

National Science Foundation summarizes its program as follows: “In FY 2011, NSF will invest roughly $19.0 million in RE-ENERGYSE through five existing research and education programs that help develop the future STEM workforce. These programs provide fellowships, traineeships, and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as build collaboration between academia and industry. NSF will contribute at least 5 percent of its support for the following programs towards specific, energy-related awards: Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF); Graduate STEM Fellows in K–12 Education (GK–12); Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT); Support for community colleges through Advanced Technological Education (ATE); and Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) sites.”

Australia’s new Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has declared war on the Rudd Government. He has kicked-off his leadership by implementing a polarisation strategy, with the emissions-trading policy forming a central part of the political battlefield. The Opposition’s new strategy provides some insight into the way in which the cap and trade politics might unfold in the United States.

The new Opposition Leader has identified the proposed emissions-trading scheme as a weak point for the Rudd Government. Labor exposed its vulnerability with efforts to keep the public debate centred on climate change ‘skeptics’ and ‘deniers’, the best example of which being Rudd’s high-profile speech at the Lowy Institute late last year.

The Rudd Government has created the perception that emissions trading is the only available climate policy option. They have framed opponents of the so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme as ‘climate skeptics’ and opposition to the policy as preventing action on climate change. Former Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull bought into this logic—or played along with it—throughout the emissions trading debate and diminished the need for the Government to explain the details of the CPRS to the general public. The result is that while the Government’s emissions trading policy is well known to the electorate, how it functions remains largely unknown—excluding of course the climate campaigners, policy wonks, and politicos closely following the passage of the legislation.

To capitalise on this opportunity, Tony Abbott and his Shadow Environment Minister Greg Hunt are working hard to brand the emission trading policy ‘a great big tax’. They are counting on the Government being unable explain what an emissions trading scheme is and how it works in a simple and coherent way.

The Opposition Leader hopes to benefit from the electorate’s ability to understand what a new tax means, and inability to comprehend Labor’s emissions trading scheme. Abbott expects to harness anti-tax sentiment he believes exists in the electorate, but as a safeguard he’s betting that on the off chance Labor can explain the ETS, they won’t be able to do as well as the Coalition’s catchy ‘ETS = tax’ sound bite.

Abbott is also tempting Rudd to defend the financial impact of the ETS by pointing to compensation for low to medium income households. The Coalition will brand this ‘a transfer of wealth’ to rev up its base.

Whether or not Abbott’s strategy will work is yet to be seen, and it’s possible that he is overestimating Australia’s opposition to taxation. He of all people should remember that it was former Prime Minister John Howard who was re-elected in 1998 with a commitment to implement a goods and services tax—‘a great big tax’.

The bottom line is that if Abbott can shift the debate to away from the Labor’s preferred terrain of the ‘climate skeptic/denier’ debate, he’ll cause some concern for Labor who may not be adequately prepared for the attack. If everything goes according to Abbott’s plan, the Coalition might just be able to land a significant political blow in an election year.

In the US context, one can expect the Republicans to follow their conservative cousins in Australia in branding carbon pricing measures ‘taxes.’ They will also follow the Australian Opposition Leader in branding compensation for households as a ‘transfer of wealth.’ While the effectiveness of the ‘transfer of wealth’ argument is limited in Australian politics, the GOP will use it against their political rivals as yet another example of Democrats pursuing ‘big government’ policies. This messaging will be deployed to thwart the Democrats’ cap-and-trade agenda and damage the party in the lead up to the mid-term elections.

A major report released last week by the National Science Board concludes that U.S. global leadership in science and technology is declining as foreign nations – especially China and other Asian countries – rapidly develop their national innovation systems.

“U.S. dominance has eroded significantly… The data begin to tell a worrisome story,” stated Kei Koizumi, assistant director for federal research and development in President Obama’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The Director of the National Science Foundation, Arden Bement, noted that “China is achieving a dramatic amount of synergy by increasing its investment in science and engineering education, in research, and in infrastructure, which is attracting scientists from all over the world.”

The report, “Science and Engineering Trends 2010,” is published every two years by the National Science Board, a 25-member expert council that advises the National Science Foundation, President, and Congress on science and technology policy, education, and research. Koizumi called it a “State of the Union on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

This “state of the union” for science and technology comes amidst growing concern that Asia is out-competing the U.S. in the burgeoning global clean-tech sector. According to the “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant” report I recently co-authored with the Breakthrough Institute and Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, China, Japan, and South Korea have already surpassed the U.S. in the production of nearly all clean energy technologies, and these governments are expected to out-invest the U.S. three-to-one in this industry over the next five years. As U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu recently said, “The world is passing us by. We are falling behind in the clean energy race.”

“Asia’s rapid ascent as a major world science and technology (S&T) center—beyond Japan—is driven by developments in China and several other Asian economies,” states the introduction to the report. “Governments [in Asia] have implemented a host of policies to boost S&T capabilities as a means to ensuring their economies’ competitive edge… the United States continues to maintain a position of leadership but has experienced a gradual erosion of its position in many specific areas.” According to Jose-Marie Griffiths, a member of the National Science Board, “While the US is the largest R&D performing nation — representing one-third of total world investment — Asia has narrowed the gap due to the sustained annual increases by China.”

Asian Nations Investing Heavily in Research & Development

U.S. investment in R&D as a ratio of total GDP has remained relatively constant since the mid-1980s, at around 2.7%, with the federal share of total R&D consistently declining. In contrast, Asian nations have rapidly expanded their R&D to GDP ratio. Japan and South Korea have outstripped the U.S. with ratios around 3.5%, and China doubled its ratio from 0.6% in 1996 to 1.5% in 2007, even while its GDP grew around 12% annually. China’s investments in R&D grew by over 20% annually between 1996 and 2007, compared to less than 6% annual growth in the United States. Asia’s share of global R&D increased from 24% to 31% over this period, while North America declined from 40% to 35%.

Key R&D graphs (click to enlarge in new window):

Asia Expanding Researchers and High-Tech Education

In terms of total researchers, the U.S. and the E.U. experienced moderate annual growth of about 3% between 1995 and 2006, while growth in the Asian region outside Japan ranged from 7-11%. China averaged nearly 9% growth annually in researchers, far outstripping any other country. Over this period the number of China’s researchers nearly tripled, from just over half a million to more than 1.4 million, boosting its global share from 13% to 25%. The U.S. also has around 1.4 million researchers, which places China at a level playing field in overall numbers (although there are questions about the quality of Chinese researchers).

For science and engineering (S&E) higher education, the report begins by emphasizing its importance as an innovation indicator: “S&E higher education provides the advanced skills needed for a competitive workforce and, particularly in the case of graduate S&E education, the research capability necessary for innovation… Higher education in S&E is important, because it produces an educated S&E workforce and an informed citizenry. It has also been receiving increased attention as an important component of U.S. economic competitiveness.”

Recognizing these trends, foreign governments are taking measure to improve their higher education systems and emphasis on S&E education. “Increasingly, governments around the world have come to regard movement toward a knowledge-based economy as key to economic progress. Realizing that this requires a well-trained workforce, they have invested in upgrading and expanding their higher education systems and broadening participation.”

The U.S. higher education system maintains critical strengths – especially U.S. research universities, which perform 56% of U.S. basic research and educate the majority of future scientists and engineers – but its position continues to decline in terms of S&E graduates. U.S. students earned only 11% of the world’s 4 million S&E first university degrees (equivalent to an undergraduate degree) awarded in 2006, compared to 21% in China and 19% in the European Union. S&E degrees are only about one-third of U.S. bachelor’s degrees, compared to 63% in Japan, 53% in China, and 51% in Singapore. Only about 5% of U.S. bachelor’s degrees are in engineering, compared to 20% total in Asia and around 33% in China.

After a long period of growth, China now produces an equal or greater number of natural science and engineering (NS&E) doctoral degrees compared to the United States, rising four-fold from approximately 5,000 in 1997 to over 20,000 in 2007. “Over time,” the report states, “the United States has fallen from one of the top countries in terms of its ratio of NS&E degrees to the college-age population to near the bottom of the 23 countries for which data are available.”

A large portion of these degrees in the United States are awarded to foreign students. International students received 24% of U.S. S&E master’s degrees, 33% of S&E doctoral degrees, and 4% of S&E bachelor’s degrees in 2007. From 2003 to 2007, the shares of the foreign-born among master’s degree and doctorate holders rose 2 percentage points each. Twenty-five percent of all college-educated U.S. workers in S&E occupations in 2003 were foreign born, as were 40% of doctorate holders in S&E occupations. About half of all foreign-born scientists and engineers are from Asia, and more than a third of U.S.-resident doctorate holders come from China (22%) and India (14%).

Key researcher and education graphs (click to enlarge in new window):

U.S. and Global Energy R&D Remains Small

Despite recent efforts by the Obama administration, energy remains a small R&D priority for the U.S. federal government compared to other areas such as health, space, and defense, continuing a long-term trend since the early 1980s. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act strengthened clean energy R&D, but its funding will expire after 2010. A relatively small portion of U.S. energy R&D goes toward renewable energy sources, and this trend is reflected internationally. Total global investment in energy R&D grew from approximately $8.5 billion in 1997 to $11 billion in 2007, with the portion for renewable energy remaining around 10%. A large and growing portion of U.S. energy experts recommend U.S. federal investment of $15-30 billion per year in energy R&D.

Key energy R&D graphs: (click to enlarge in new window)

Conclusion

The report is alarming, but it is not all bad news for the United States. It presents solid evidence that, at least in the near-term, we remain the world’s innovation leader, from our public and private investments in research and development, to the strength of our higher education institutions, to our production of patents, knowledge-intensive services, and high-technology manufacturing. For the clean-tech industry in particular, this suggests that stronger public policies to leverage U.S. innovation capacities – including $15-30 billion per year in federal clean energy R&D, a national energy education initiative, investments in enabling energy infrastructure, and other policies to drive innovation – could lead to rapid improvements in U.S. competitiveness.

However, the overall trend is clear: Asian nations are quickly ascending as science and technology leaders, and our position will continue to decline without significant efforts to maintain and strengthen the U.S. innovation system, with major implications for our economic competitiveness, national security, and international leadership. This article provided an overview of key “innovation input” indicators, including R&D, higher education, and researchers. For a more comprehensive list of indicators – including outputs such as patents and research articles – see the full report here.

Yet again, Thomas Friedman nails the clean energy race and fails on the policy strategy. His op-ed today, “Who’s Sleeping Now?” (similar to our recent report, “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant“) claims that carbon pricing is the solution to secure U.S. competitiveness in the global clean-tech industry:

“We are either going to put in place a price on carbon and the right regulatory incentives to ensure that America is China’s main competitor/partner in the E.T. revolution, or we are going to gradually cede this industry to Beijing and the good jobs and energy security that would go with it… It is clear that if we, America, care about our energy security, economic strength and environmental quality we need to put in place a long-term carbon price that stimulates and rewards clean power innovation.”

By calling for the passage of the American Clean Energy & Security Act (ACESA) — without mentioning a single area for improvement — Friedman implies it is strong enough to compete with Asia and drive the U.S. transition to clean energy, when in fact the bill would (1) establish a very modest price on carbon due to numerous cost-containment mechanisms like international offsets; (2) invest an order of magnitude less in clean energy technology development than a large and ever-growing number of experts say is necessary — including dozens of Nobel Laureates, America’s top research universities, Google, Brookings Institution, Breakthrough Institute, Third Way, military veterans, and others; and (3) establish a renewable electricity standard that would not ensure any increase in U.S. renewable energy deployment beyond already conservative business-as-usual projections (see here for comprehensive analysis of ACESA).

That may be acceptable to Thomas Friedman, but it is no way for the United States to lead the clean energy industry. For more on this ongoing debate, see my recent response to Friedman, “Earth to Thomas Friedman: Winning the ‘Earth Race’ Requires Federal Investment.”

“If the American people will not make economic sacrifices to hedge against global warming, they must be convinced that they will not have to, or better yet, that actions will reap benefits… [the climate bill] could be converted to a major economic boost through one change to the proposed policies: robust federal investment. President Obama’s original request for $15 billion in annual investment for clean-energy development, recommended by a group of 34 Nobel Laureate scientists, has been considerably weakened. It must be reinstated. Yes, the federal budget is strained, but these investments are vital for American competitiveness and would pay back many times over…

Renewable energy also holds massive potential for economic growth. With a global population that will hit nine billion by 2050 and standards of living rising around the world, demand for energy will skyrocket past its current supply, global warming or not.

If the United States does not rise up to fill this market, other countries will. China plans to invest $660 billion in clean energy over the next 10 years and is already beginning to dominate the industry. American inaction would mean continued reliance on imported energy, millions of lost jobs and another blow to a frail economic foundation. Federal investment in research and development, as Fareed Zakaria notes in Newsweek, has brought us the Internet, lasers, MRIs and DNA sequencing. It can bring us renewable energy, too.

…if the political will for this cap-and-trade ‘sacrifice’ does not exist in the United States, then energy investment should garner bipartisan support, improve the economy and make a significant impact on the climate problem. Thomas Friedman, Zakaria and commentators around the country have started trumpeting this idea, originally popularized by the Breakthrough Institute think tank: Going green can pay. And only when the American people believe this will solutions follow.”

Universities and colleges have a critical role to play in accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy and reclaiming U.S. competitiveness in the global clean-tech race. Universities perform 54 percent of the nation’s basic research, a fundamental building block of the technological innovation we need to spark the clean energy revolution. Universities and college are the training ground for the next generation of scientists, engineers, teachers, and leaders in government and industry. And universities are the launching ground for numerous entrepreneurial ventures to bring those innovations to the marketplace. Indeed, it’s common knowledge that universities like Stanford played a defining role in the information technology revolution, birthing companies like Google, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun Microsystems.

However, as President Obama reminded us in a speech today at the White House, “despite the importance of education in these subjects, we have to admit we are right now being outpaced by our competitors… To continue to cede our leadership in education is to cede our position in the world.” As we found in our recent report, “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” Asian nations like China, South Korea, and Japan are launching massive government investment projects to dominate the clean-tech sector, which promises to be one of the largest new growth sectors of the next few decades.

In order to catch up, American students should work with their university and college administrators to secure greater educational resources related to clean energy technology and policy, including better curriculum, professors, classroom and laboratory resources, career development opportunities, support for student entrepreneurship, and research. Every significant institution of higher education in the country should have an energy-related institute that incubates cutting-edge education, research, and innovation. Students are flocking to schools with the best clean-tech programs, and university administrations are increasingly paying attention.

And at the federal level, the United States will need a national clean-tech education strategy on par with the National Defense Education Act of 1958, similar to the National Energy Education Act we proposed back in 2008. The Obama administration’s RE-ENERGYSE proposal was a step in the right direction, but unfortunately it was rejected by Congress last year. Will the administration and Congress work together on a new proposal in 2010 on the scale we need to win the clean energy race? Stay tuned.

Here’s the full university ranking, cross-posted from Cleantech Group:

Top 10 cleantech universities in the U.S. for 2010
January 4, 2010 by Shawn Lesser

Where will the cutting edge companies that transform the industries of cleantech going to come from? Odds are that it will be from one of the top cleantech universities.

While many dotcom companies were started by students out of their dorm rooms or basements, don’t look for a similar trend in the cleantech world. You need a lot more than a desktop and a good Internet-based idea. You need specialized resources that you usually can find at a university.

Venture capital firms now have to keep tabs on chemical and engineering labs at some of the best U.S. universities as potential sources of new companies.

A few months ago, I ranked the best U.S. states for cleantech, as well as the top 10 cleantech countries (see The top 10 U.S. states for cleantech in 2009 and The top 10 cleantech countries of 2009).

In my latest rankings, I sought to identify the 10 U.S. academic institutions best suited to take advantage of this trend. I looked whether there exists—and to what degree—a pipeline of collaboration of businesses, universities, state initiatives, investors and research dollars. The mix has to be just right to accomplish the end goal of a commercially viable product.

Here are the top 10 cleantech universities in 2010, in my estimation:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT is a true cleantech spinoff machine. The Cambridge, Mass.-based institution is also home to the MIT Clean Energy Prize, the premier student clean energy innovation and venture creation competition in the country. The annual $200,000 prize is awarded to the top student energy venture in the country. In 2009, 113 teams entered from 40 universities around the country. MIT Clean Energy Prize has helped launch several energy ventures, including FloDesign, FastCap Systems, Levant Power, Husk Insulation, and Covalent Solar. Another reason for the top ranking has been the establishment of the MIT Energy Initiative in September 2006, as an institute-wide initiative designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today’s energy systems. Notable cleantech spinouts include: A123 Systems, FastCap Systems, Levant Power, Trophos Energy, Promethean Power, 1366 Technologies, Sun Catalytix, and Agrivida.
2. University of California at Berkeley One of UC Berkeley’s goals is to connect students and the business community to the high-level research done at the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and on-campus labs. Berkeley is home to several partnerships with big players in the industry. The most important ones are the Energy and Biosciences Institute—a partnership of UC Berkeley, Berkeley Lab, and the University of Illinois, funded by BP with $500 million over ten years (see BP funds biofuel research with $500M)—and the Bio Energy Institute, which is a partnership of three national labs and three research universities in the San Francisco Bay Area, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy with $125 million over five years. Finally, the proximity to Silicon Valley and the East Bay Cleantech Corridor gives students the opportunity to get in touch with the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and consulting companies that are driving the growth of the new energy sector. Notable cleantech spinoffs: Amyris Biotechnologies, Adura Technologies, Seeo, Aurora Biofuels, and Progressive Cooling Solutions.
3. The University of Texas in Austin The University of Texas at Austin is a historical leader in energy innovation, R&D and teaching. With abundant oil and gas on its own lands, and deep connections to the energy industry, UT has directly profited from its energy leadership and its graduates have populated the highest executive ranks of the world’s energy companies (CEO of ExxonMobil, CEO of ConocoPhillips, President of Shell are just a few examples). The good news is that UT is using its leadership of the conventional energy industry as a launching pad for continued leadership in the cleantech revolution. Those same oil and gas companies are investing aggressively into cleantech and they turn to UT for the expertise and people to make those innovations work. The inventor of the lithium-ion battery, John Goodenough, is a professor of mechanical engineering at UT. The university also is a leader in algae based biofuels. UT is a part of a multimillion dollar DARPA-sponsored project to produce jet fuels from algae. UT Austin was also awarded $35 million in research on carbon sequestration by the Department of Energy. Notable cleantech spinouts include: ActaCell, Advanced Hydro, Graphene Energy, Organic Fuels, and Inspired Solar.
4. Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. Stanford University is on the cutting edge of clean technology. Stanford has developed an ambitious, long-range, $250 million initiative to sharply reduce the university’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The university also has established a $100 million research institute, the Precourt Institute for Energy, to focus on energy issues (see Stanford launches $100M energy research institute). More than $30 million in yearly funding is now spent on energy research at the university. Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) is the entrepreneurship center at Stanford’s School of Engineering. STVP is dedicated to accelerating high-technology entrepreneurship education and creating scholarly research on technology-based firms that, in turn, provides new insights for students, scholars and business leaders. Notable cleantech spinouts: Amprius, Nanostellar, Rolith, D.light Design, Driptech, and Veranda Solar.
5. University of Michigan in Ann Arbor With research expenditures of over $1 billion and an innovation pipeline unparalleled among the nation’s public universities, the University of Michigan can rightly take its place among the leading Cleantech universities in the U.S. Student engagement in Cleantech Entrepreneurship is at a all-time high, driven by the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Business School, the Center for Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering, and the student organization MPowered. The student-led Wolverine Venture Fund and the Frankel Commercialization Fund managed by the Zell Lurie Institute made recent investments in Environmental Operating Systems, and Accio Energy. The Universities TechArb program is poised to leverage a rich entrepreneurial ecosystem to stake out a leadership position in the emerging green economy. Notable cleantech spinouts include: T/J Technologies (acquired), Sensicore (acquired), Sakti3, and Flexsys Wind Energy.
6. University of Colorado at Boulder The University of Colorado at Boulder is viewed as being at the forefront of the sustainability and cleantech revolution. The university was recently recognized by Sierra Magazine as the No. 1 sustainable campus in the United States. CU Boulder has created a new joint energy institute with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The new institute, The Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), partners leading researchers from CU-Boulder and NREL on cross discipline research across multiple areas. Currently there are 19 major corporations that sit on the RASEI leadership council including such companies as Xcel Energy, ConocoPhilips, Toyota, SAIC, Good Energies, Wells Fargo and Vestas. In addition, dozens of companies are involved in collaborative research with the university and its partners across several major cleantech initiatives. With more than $350 million of annual research funding, the University of Colorado at Boulder leads the Rocky Mountain region in world class research. Notable cleantech spinouts: Ion Engineering and OPX Biotechnologies.
7. University of Wisconsin at Madison University of Wisconsin has been a leader in cleantech research for decades. The Solar Energy Lab, founded in 1954, is the oldest of its kind. More recently, the university has become a focal point for research in bio-energy and is home to one of three Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Centers and the only one based at an academic institution (see Not everyone applauds new U.S. biofuel research centers). In 2009, the College of Engineering entered into a long-term partnership with Vestas. In May, the University of Wisconsin snagged 10 of 71 funding awards from the U.S. Department of Energy for advanced nuclear research, totaling more than $5 million. To coordinate the energy-related research and education, a group of professors came together in 2006 to create the Energy Institute. Focused on sustainability opportunities through “real world” design and engineering practices. Notable cleantech spinouts include: Virent Energy Systems and AquaMost.
8. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY With world-class research in the physical sciences, engineering and nanotechnology fields, Cornell is a natural spawning ground for cleantech. And Cornell is leading New York state’s task force to promote high-tech development through industry-higher education partnerships. Cornell’s campuswide Center for a Sustainable Future is unique in fostering innovative multi-disciplinary research into new energy sources, environmental and biodiversity initiatives, and economic development projects for global implementation of these programs. Notable cleantech spinouts include: Novomer and iFyber.
9. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga. Georgia Tech is one of the nation’s top research universities with over $500 million of sponsored research activity currently. The Advanced Technology Development Center is a nationally recognized science and technology incubator that helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Commercialization Services helps move innovations out of Georgia Tech laboratories and into the marketplace by assessing the commercial potential of research results and assisting in the development of new companies through the VentureLab program. VentureLab is currently advising a number of cleantech startup companies (see Cleantech industry in the U.S. South emerging from stealth). Notable cleantech spinouts: Suniva, RideCell, and CoolClouds.
10. Washington State University, Pullman, Wash. With legacy expertise in agriculture, power and applied engineering, WSU’s Clean Technology program is rapidly growing in the cleantech-centric Pacific Northwest. Plant science is the engine behind the opening last year of the Bioproducts Science and Engineering Laboratory, Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and the recently funded Washington State Algae Alliance. One of the main objectives is the commercialization of aviation biofuels with partner Boeing Commercial Airlines. Notable cleantech spinouts: GoNano, Ajuga Biosciences, BioGasol, Schweitzer Engineering Labs, and Integrated Engineering Solutions.

Shawn Lesser is the president and founder of Atlanta-based Sustainable World Capital, which is focused on fund-raising for private equity cleantech/sustainable funds, as well as private cleantech companies. For information, visit his Web site.