The green frog from silicon valley

Where the wind blows...

2009-10-27T09:34:17-07:00

I like to go every year to Maui and enjoy kite-surfing. More than the relaxed environment and the beautiful beaches, it is an opportunity to reconnect with nature and its powerful natural resources. As I was driving to North Shore every day, I noticed a wind solar farm located in the West Mai mountains... I inquired about it and learned that the Kaheawa wind farm generates 30MW thanks to 20 GE turbines scaterred along the ridgeline.

The name "Kaheawa" itself describes the wind pattern typically found in this location: wetter wind coming from the windward side of Maui that often brings cloud formations that seem to hover over the ridgeline. The people of the Hawaiian Islands have always had an intimate relationship with nature, so much so that natural occurrences are considered events, each with their own unique name.

As an abundant resource, the wind has historically played an important role in the culture of the Hawaiian Islands, and as result there are numerous terms here for each distinctive type of wind. "Olau koa" refers to a very strong wind. A wind strong enough to blow the leaves off the native Koa tree, one of the tallest trees in Hawaii that has long been treasured for its wood. "Kili hau" is the rain or mist at Kaheawa. It's the gentle, small, cold droplets that form near the end of a shower.

As we are rediscovering how dependent we are to nature, we do celebrate it with technology innovations. The State of Hawaii for example has launched a new initiative to produce 70% of its energy needs by 2030 from clean resources. In addition to power farms, solar panels are spreading on the island, from residential houses to business campuses alike. Surprisingly the State of Hawaii was only the 35th to implement a Net Energy Metering law to make solar power installations financially attractive.

Islands remain the perfect fit to develop a clean energy program and a sustainable closed community to test new ideas. Other countries like France provide higher feed-in tariffs than in metropolitan areas to promote the deployment of renewable energies. Pacific territories benefit of course from sunny weather year long and can tap easily into solar power; yet this does not explain this will.

Unlike urban cities, islands are physically disconnected to the rest of the world but need to compete to provide jobs and remain attractive. They cannot just rely on tourism and farming in the long run. The Maui High Performance Computing Center recently announced it doubled its computing capacity with the installation of new computing cluster. It is named after the supernatural force "mana". The DOD funded research computing center is now back in the top-50 list of supercomputers worldwide. Hopefully, the increase in power consumption is not off-setting the benefit of the wind power farm!

Historical significance of smart infrastructures

2009-08-19T21:57:38-07:00

With summer I am keen to close my three-part study on smart infrastructures. This subject will remain on my mind though, as I continue to meet and discuss with Energy and IT actors. In particular I am interested in relating stories accross America of start-ups innovating in this field. If you do, don't be shy and drop me an email... by many standards America has an aging and unefficient infrastructure compared to other developped countries.

Like every year I went to Brittany for summer break and enjoyed its beautiful coast line. I surprised myself one afternoon to talk on the beach about smart infrastructure with my neighbour. Guy Hascoet lives in a village in Britanny and loves the regions of France; unlike many former members of the Government whose deep knowledge of France is limited to downtown Paris, he knows its provinces well and deeply cares about their competivity and sustainable development.

While our daughters were playing joyfully on the beach Guy explained me that the future is for efficient infrastructures and services. "Few people know that 38% of drinkable water is lost in France; only 62% reaches our focets while the rest is waisted due to leaks". He added that the main development strategy in France is still to build ducts, roads, buildings, etc. "When I learned about multi-wavelength fiber optic systems, it was a breakthrough for me. It was the first time that we deployed a more efficient solution to adress the need for more capacity instead of digging more in the streets and laying out more of the same."

We have reached a turning point indeed and the deployment of smarter infrastructures seems to be an important vector of sutainable development rather than a trend that will fade. In the last few months I have reflected on the historical significance of smart infrastructures. The work of the techno-economist Carlota Perez helped me organize my thoughts. Each industrial revolution and time of progress was connected to an important change in infrastruture (canals, railway, roads, etc.) that increased productivity. Her book provides great insights into the mechanics of technology innovation, economic growth and social progress.

I first met Pr. Carlota Perez at a conference in Amsterdam two years ago. She presented a roadmap for rational policy making and supported private-public partnerships to build new infrastructures such as fiber access networks. She analyzed the first four industrial revolutions and identified recurring patterns. The bubble collapse that we experienced in 2000 is not the first, and it typically marks the end the "installation" period fueld by financial capital, "the roaring twenties" for instance.

Before society can bear the full fruits from industrial progress like in the "post-WW2 golden age", Pr. Perez observed that it typically goes through a period of uncertainty, which she calls the "turning point". Most significantly, she found that the only way to break out of the turning point into a healthy "deployment" period is for the State to return in alliance with the business world. This period of turbulence can end with a serious recession that shakes the confidence in the present and moves towards favoring regulation and income distribution policies.

A year before the financial melt-down of the banking system in the September 2008 and the subsequent reforms of President Obama, Pr. Perez had these visionary words: "in the absence of conscious regulation and policies [...], the instabilities underlying the present performance of the various economies may produce collapses that could bring the world economy into recession".

What does this have to do with green initiatives and smart infrastructures, you may ask? Well, Pr. Perez sees in ICT Green a model for an economic recovery and the basis of a new golden age. The current industrial revolution that has been taking place since 1971 moved us from the logic of cheap energy for transport to the logic of cheap information and telecommunications. The marriage of sustainable energy values and ICT efficiencies can spread across industries, improve our infrastructure, reduce carbon foot-print and create durable wealth.

In that sense smart infrastructure is not a trend and could be the blue-print for steady growth into the next 20-30 years, much like the highway constructions of the New Deal after WW2, which later brought a new subburban standard of living. It is not surprising that some of the Stimulus Package is being used to renovate and green America's infrastructure with smart roads, smart bridges and smart grids. As Michael Totty noted in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, "It's time the US got a lot smarter"...

If you please, draw me a smart infrastructure

2009-05-21T01:15:38-07:00

In the last post I described how the ICT industry is approaching sustainability and can help modernize our infrastructures. IBM announced recently $2B of new financing options available to its clients to accelerate smart infrastructure initiatives. The IBM Global Financing investment is slated for technology solutions in key economic stimulus areas, including Smart Grid, Health Information Technology and Broadband Access. Are these disparate programs put under a common marketing umbrella, like Cisco’s “human network” ad campaign, or representative of a more fundamental transformation? In short, what is a “smart infrastructure”?

It is commonly interpreted as a smart electrical power grid but there is more to it, and broadband connectivity is definitely a core component. If I were to attempt to define “smart infrastructure”, I would be tempted first to draw a few clouds, like if the Little Prince was standing next to me and asking me "draw me a sheep, if you please": live data are captured from sensors, information is exchanged using a broadband connection and processed by embedded chips or remote servers, active elements adjust to the environment and software applications allow the users to optimize their now "intelligent" infrastructure...

I first heard the concept on intelligent network infrastructure from the Research & Education (R&E) community who has been working on a new generation of network interaction tools that merge advanced sensor, computing, networking and visualization technologies to support Big Science projects. One of the most famous project is CERN’s Large Hadron Collider with its petabytes of data shared across supercomputers around the world.

Those technologies can also be useful to recover faster and prepare better for disasters like Hurricane Katrina. An article in the United Nations Chronicle first outlined in late 2004 the need of smart infrastructure for sustainable development and disaster preparedness, following the aftermath of the tsunami in South East Asia. Some of the R&E labs actually helped analyze images from disasters. In the picture below, Pr. Larry Smarr, one of the R&E leading figures and also known as the "grand father" of the Internet, is viewing a high resolution of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The concept of smart infrastructure was later reprised by political leaders from Gov. Schwarzenegger, who has been leading California towards more sustainability, to Australian Sen. Conroy Australian who recently launched "down under" a whopping $43B national broadband network initiative. The Australian Government actually listed smart infrastructure as one of the benefits and took the example of a the St Anthony Falls bridge that was replaced with a new structure with thousands of sensors to monitor load and weather conditions after a fatal collapse in the Mississippi river in 2007.

In his recent remarks to defend his project, Sen. Conroy cited Pr. Smarr and commanded his vision to point out that "broadband and connected technologies will reshape the way we think about infrastructure management." He added that "smart infrastructure will be equipped with sensor technology to detect movement and deterioration. The information will be monitored constantly allowing better timed and targeted responses. It means better, more informed decisions can be made about safety and maintenance."

The ICT community would like to think that they invented the concept of smart infrastructure. When you think about it, a large portion of the ICT infrastructure is already automated: the Internet is an intelligent network that transfers bits of data efficiently; it heals from route changes and cable outages; it allows the number of users to grow organically without central control like a giant web, thus breaking away from the old Telco infrastructure model to unleash a new realm of possibilities. Good. The problem: it is not that smart as it relies on a largely manual physical infrastructure, and it consumes a lot of energy. So to be sustainable it must rely on a smart energy infrastructure, that itself must use ICT capabilities to reduce its carbon footprint…

The tight interaction between our infrastructures became clear to me when I talked a few weeks ago with a representative of Verizon who explained to me their sustainable initiatives. Those initiatives are substantial and Verizon was recently lauded by the Environment Defense Fund. He went further though, and made the argument that the network infrastructure is intelligent, and that other infrastructures are 20-30 years behind and could use a bit of help. That is probably true in America. But some other countries, in Scandinavia for instance, have more modern utilities and view broadband connectivity as a new commodity to provide to homes, much like water and electricity.

Bill St Arnaud also warns in his blog of the claims on energy efficient solutions, driven by cost saving concerns rather than sustainability goals. He argues that energy efficiency initiatives lower cost and ultimately increase demand, and therefore do not help fighting climate change. This is why the Canadian R&E community is looking at developing zero-carbon networks and data centers. Smart infrastructures should aim at significantly reducing carbon emission.

So isn't a smart infrastructure, after all, a set of infrastructures (energy, communication, transportation, building, etc.) interacting together to optimize productivity, improve well being and reduce carbon emission? That is closer to our end goal but we should talk then of "smart infrastructures". It is common for new trendy words to mean different things to different people as they become catch phrases to capture attention or to seek Government funding. Nanotechnology was the buzz word 4-5 years ago and took time to settle and define a new discipline. The significance of “smart infrastructures” will hence appear more clearly in time.

Move towards smart infrastructure

2009-05-11T19:30:37-07:00

During Fortune’s Brainstorm: Green event I took part in a workshop on Sustainable IT. A key concept emerged during the session led by representatives from Microsoft, HP and Intel and moderated by Joel Makower from Green World Media: the notion of "smart infrastructure". All participants recognized the effort of the ICT industry to limit its carbon foot-print (a recent Gartner report estimates it at 2%) but the moderator reckoned that a larger opportunity might lay elsewhere. He asked the panel how they could help other industries: "What about the other 98%?"

Robert Bernard from Microsoft touched base on the role of software in sustainable IT. It is a core component to connect sensors, the grid, etc. He took the example of PG&E that announced the deployment of already 2.3 million smart meters to learn about consumption patterns, and to see what they can do with that information to reduce energy consumption from residential market (note from the Green Frog: PG&E currently provides a service to large business customers a number of energy saving programs. He stated that IT industry needed to be reinvented and that the “IP network” will become the “eP nework”. For Microsoft the interest is of course to get their operating systems in more devices like electric cars. Operating systems can help manage GPS information for instance, and identify where the next recharging station is located.

Chandrakant Patel from HP Labs presented a service point of view. A lot of progress, he noted, can be made on delivering energy services based on needs vs. the old 24x7 regulated service paradigm. He stressed the importance of looking at the carbon foot-print through the whole life cycle: design -> manufacturing -> operation -> recycling. He took the example of an Indian person who does not have electricity now and could benefit from local renewable energies for basic activities and does not need a high quality service. His group is also looking at new multi-disciplinary approach to massage all the information captured from various clouds, look at patterns and find optimization. He mentioned a lot of what was developed in the Internet bubble can be leveraged, when dot.com companies and service providers looked at consumer buying patterns.

Lorie Wigle from Intel explained that is more than chips. Obviously “smarter” infrastructure means processing and chips, and that is why they are looking closely at it. But there is a need for a system based approach, standards and open interfaces to gather and process data, and policies. She mentioned the Digital Energy Solution campaign supported by large corporations and NGOs. They are now looking how ICT can impact other industries like the automobile industry. The alliance works on smart grid, green grid projects, etc.

The Q&A session provided the opportunity to discuss practical examples. Chandrakant explained how they sample thousands of sensors every 15 seconds and how over-provisioning could be reduced with smart sensing. Robert took the example of a refrigerator that will consume twice as much as energy months before it breaks; this could be averted now if it could declare itself to the network and be monitored.

Carl Bass from AutoDesk interjected that infrastructure optimization is good but that their experience is that most of the cost and the carbon foot-print is set in the design and manufacturing phase. The CEO of AutoDesk is therefore interested to develop product libraries with green information and green design rules. He took the example of reliability commonly used today: component modules have now a lot of data about this aspect and models have been developed to create reliable products. There is no longer a need to test and crash a car to optimize its design.

Bob Bernard argued that one still needs sensors to capture the data needed to develop those models. The challenge is not much technical – most technologies are there - but behavioral. How to capture and manage all these information made possible by IT network capacities and large computing processing powers? That is the interesting part; networks will become more “human”.

The CEO of Johnston Control, also present at the workshop, concurred that a lot could be done now. A lot of infrastructure like airports has already access to a lot of information from sensors. Yet, not much has been done with it. He took the example the Empire State Building, which they helped retrofit with control systems. The building is now using 30% less energy and the upgrade cost will pay for itself in 3 years.

Joel Makower concluded the workshop by stating that there is an enormous opportunity to rebuild the infrastructure in a better way. The panel highlighted a number of areas but came short of defining what a smart infrastructure is. I will address this question in my next post before digging into the historical significance of the move towards a smart infrastructure.

It is a green recovery, stupid!

2009-04-26T23:38:46-07:00

More than a day of celebrations, this has been a full week of Earth Day related events! Some volunteers were still cleaning Angel Island and other California parks on Saturday. In its 40th year, Earth Day has grown to become a global landmark and the occasion for major Government and Industry announcements. In the economic downturn green initiatives have also found new depth and gained in realism. One clear trend from last year is the focus on energy efficiency across industries (supporting renewable energies and developing environmental consciousness were the highlights of 2008) as a way to reconcile economic realities and the need to fight climate change.

Like last year, I went to Southern California to attend Fortune Brainstorm: Green conference. Well attended and in the superb setting of Laguna Niguel, the conference brought together again Government officials, industry leaders, entrepreneurs and investors. It was the opportunity to reflect on the transformation that we are living and take a snapshot of the environmental movement: the renewable energy sector is maturing, companies are reducing energy consumption, policies are taking form, and the United States are finally answering the call of leadership from the rest of the world.

But it is on the job front that the most pleasant surprise came. Bill Clinton captured in the event's closing remarks that business is the key to climate change. Back in September, I raised the question whether the new Administration would seize this defining moment to reform our policies and reshape our economy. And it seems that it actually does want to go that route. Van Jones, the new White House Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, explained in a panel "Green Jobs: hype or reality" how tax dollars can be used to help transform the economy and restore the moral of middle America by providing a sense of purpose in addition of decent wages. "We have opportunity to redefine work" challenged the representative of Obama's team. He went on to explain that green jobs will put our children through College and will preserve resources for our grandchildren.

This political will resonated during the conference with a series of business anecdotes from around the country. The Environmental Defense Fund released at the conference its second Innovation Review focused on green advances for a new economy. "Environmental innovation is a powerful way to create business value" stated Gwen Ruta, Vice President of Corporate Partnerships. Researching and interviewing small and large companies, America's EDF (not to confuse with French energy giant) has the merit to sort out green-washy initiatives from significant innovations that tackle today's environmental and economic challenges head-on. A sign that the new Administration is taking notice, this NGO is losing staff every week to Federal and State Governments.

Largely outdated, America's infrastructure offers a unique opportunity to transform blue-collar jobs into green jobs and to leverage technology innovation to create a more durable and better distributed wealth in the country. It is also the chance to unite low-tech and high-tech States around a recovery plan, and to transcend the divisions between blue and red States. "It is a green recovery, stupid!", to paraphrase the famous campaign slogan. This week I will dig deeper on the subjects of green recovery initiatives and of smart infrastructure. Stay tuned!

I want my green plug too

2009-02-13T08:19:51-08:00

Have you ever lost your nerves looking for your cell phone charger? Have you ever misplaced your laptop power supply, to find yourself running frantically to a store and struggling to find a replacement? Well, you are not alone. Even if you say no - and I don't believe you - look around your home or your office: we are surrounded by these power eating bugs that spread in front of our eyes. I have more than a dozen of them home myself, and I'd like to get rid of them.

That is what Frank Paniagua, the CEO of Green Plug, thought too when he and his wife went away for a friend's wedding. They struggled to find plugs in their hotel room for all their devices. He realized that the situation with consumer electronics was getting our of hand. "There must be a solution!" he told himself. Frank had solved a similar problem twenty years ago when he led the VESA standard to make personal computers and monitors compatible accross manufacturers.

Green Plug is a 3 year-old star-up based in San Ramon.The 15-people crew developps an innovative and secure digiltal communication protocol between devices that need power and their power sources. I first heard about them at a Clean Tech Open gathering last summer. Since then, they have made progress on their quest to provide a universal power supply to the consumer market. I decided to catch up with them last week and chatted with Seth Socolow, Green Plug VP of Corporate Marketing.

"It takes time to get large manufacturers on board. But they are getting it." Seth explains with enthusiasm. Despite early skeptiscm, HP, Apple and the likes are slowly coming to the realization that this is the way to go. To help accelerate the adoption cycle, Green Plug tweaked their business model: they provide the communication protocol for free to consumer electronic makers and they are selling the communication chip to the power-supply manufacturers.

The first impact of such a technology is to limit the amount of energy consumed as the protocol allows the devices to get the energy that they need. No need to remove chargers when power up is complete or overheating them. The bigger impact is likely to simply save the waist of energy and materials into making a charger for every new consumer electronic device. The new Alliance for Universal Power Supplies reports that 3.2 billion power supplies were designed and shipped in 2008 alone.

Just prior to the new year, Innergie introduced mCube90G, the first implementation of the Green Plug protocol dubbed "Greentalk". The Greentalk-enabled device aims to be the world's smallest universal power adapter. The year 2009 is starting with hope for Green Plug who also launched "I want my green plug" e-community to help build consumer awareness and gather support. Well, I want mine too!

When part of Green goes White

2009-02-04T22:29:46-08:00

Efficiency has been on my mind in the last few weeks. The effects of the economic downturn start to sink in and are affecting the high-tech sector: tightened capital budget, frugal spending, and reduction in forces… the trend is clear. The recent failure of the banking system crisis is forcing everyone to do more with less. And energy efficiency is becoming one of the hottest Green subjects.

During a recent business trip in Southern California I decided to stop by and visit the Energy Efficiency Institute at my Alma Matter, who incidentally had asked me to look at their new outreach program. As I was walking among the numerous new buildings, I was caught by the reminiscent smell of eucalyptus trees all around campus. I realized how much the place had changed and grew from the Party School it once was. The reputation of UCSB's recent Nobel Prize winners has now replaced the notoriety of its Halloween parties…

Lost, I found comfort in seeing Engineering I building where I did my graduate research. One of the first four buildings to be connected to ARPANET project that led to the Internet, it is now surrounded by the California Nanotechnology Institute and the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management that hosts the Institute. UCSB decided to focus on Energy Efficiency last year and is once more on the leading edge with other California campuses. Stanford announced several weeks ago the creation of $100M Energy research institute. UCSD just hosted the “Greening the Internet Economy” symposium.

Finally, the Program Director of the Institute saved me from my campus wandering and walked me to her office to meet the Executive Director. “Hi Dan! How was your flight?” I asked. Dan Colbert, a pioneer in carbon nanotubes before joining one of the first VC funds focused on clean-tech, still looked haggard from his last trip. We quickly warmed up as he talked to me about the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi he had just attended.

Despite the presence of keynote speakers like Tony Blair, the conference turned out to be disappointing. The highlight of the event was the announcement by the Crown Prince of the new "Masdar city" (named after the local energy giant; imagine “Exxon Mobil" town!) and the target to get 7% of energy consumption (only!) from renewables… We both agreed that if everybody understands that the “Green train” has left and that nobody can stop its course, some definitely want to slow it down.

This type of PR events also poses another challenge: diluted among the mass of empty if not fallacious green news, many green worthy initiatives are having difficulty to find their voice. As we are talking through their e-community project, I quickly got excited and Dan came up with the term “White Room” for their new web-page. He explained to me that in Europe energy efficiency programs are tagged “white” while “green” is kept for clean technologies. “White? It is the plant you don’t need to build…”

Cleantech sector remains hot despite cold economy

2009-01-19T23:15:27-08:00

Last Thursday I stopped by at the Clean Tech Investment Forum organized at the incubator where my current start-up company resides. It was the opportunity to get the temperature of the clean-tech sector early in the year. The room was packed.

Plug&Play Center is one of those unique places that only exist in Silicon Valley: hosting more than 150 early-stage companies, it also hosts a full-scale data center, a cozy cafeteria and a VC Pavilion. It is not surprising that many foreign entrepreneurs choose this place to go after their dreams and benefit from the constant interaction with other start-ups, simply around coffee breaks or during one of the frequent networking events.

As I was taking the elevator down at the end of another busy day, I was intrigued by the poster promoting last Thursday's event. Shai Aggasi was featured as one of the keynote speakers. I had wanted to hear him talk for a while about his project for a Better Place…

As I entered the hall, I was surprised to see the place completely full. I tried to keep attention on the first keynote speech from Lightspeed Ventures while I was walking towards the buffet displaying hors-d'oeuvres. Talking through the usual facts and figures of the green sector, Andrew Chung made a few interesting remarks for 2009. He expected a significant slow-down in clean-tech funding and a larger role from the Government. He also predicted that investments will grow in areas that can achieve competitive economics: energy efficiency, smart grid and energy storage.

Entrepreneurs in the audience confirmed that investments in alternative energy sources like solar or bio-fuels, the darlings of the last couple of years, had peaked in the first half of 2008. "Those sectors will likely face a consolidation" noted a CEO who closed a series-A round right before the banking system melt-down.

Plug&Play used the Clean Tech Investment Forum to launch officially its cleantech unit and to announce it is looking to expand. E-Radio, one of the five green companies pitching to investors that night, said they would consider moving to the new location. Developing smartgrid solutions using FM radio technology, this start-up is part of the recent trend to make our infrastructure "smart": buildings, roads, energy grids, and cars.

Shai Aggassi ended up not coming but the head of the California division of Better Place explained that their goal is to make cars efficient and "networked". After web 2.0, here is "car 2.0"! This could be an important transformation indeed; let's hope those "infrastructure 2.0" projects will have a better future than most of the social network companies that are currently closing doors.

Living mostly from advertizing revenue, web 2.0 companies in San Francisco have been particularly hit during the downturn. By comparison Silicon Valley is doing well and is definitely looking to the cleantech sector to warm up a difficult winter!

Green wishes for 2009

2008-12-31T19:04:32-08:00

The year 2008 has been a roller-coaster for many of us but it was a very positive year for the Green movement. While gas prices went up and down as never before, 2008 marked several important milestones: the take-off of the renewable energy sector and the use of hybrid cars, the realization that the US needs to play a stronger role to combat global warming, the resurgence of green initiatives in corporations and the push for higher efficiencies across the board. Even George Bush now speaks candidly about Global Warming in a rare televised footage…

While the future of the economy is still in question, the year ended with some more good (and serious) notes. The Senate smartly renewed tax credits for the clean-energy sector part of the Bailout Plan, and the President Elect appointed an environmental “dream team” to implement his coming policies. The “green dream team” includes Carol Browner as White House energy czar, Steven Chu a Nobel Laureate for physics as head of the Energy Department, and Lisa Jackson as director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Barrack Obama also previously picked Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, who has opposed drilling in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge, as his Interior Secretary.

As the year in a few hours I thought to end my last post of 2008 with my top-5 green wishes for 2009. Here we go:

1. The transition to hybrid cars continues despite lower gas prices

2. Solar energy reaches cost-parity and the new solar-cell market bubble doesn’t go bust!

3. The new Administration does make green initiatives a priority part of long-term economical reforms

4. US joins Europe in renewing Kyoto agreements and preparing the next Cap & Trade system for 2012

5. After buying a hybrid car in 2008, I get an electrical car for free (note: I had to list that one!)

With that, I want to thank my regular readers for their continuous support and for simply reading my new blog. Suggestions are welcome and I promise to post more regularly; this is part of my new-year’s resolutions.

From global melting pot to solving global challenges

2008-11-09T19:07:27-08:00

Watching the new President’s acceptance speech on Election night, one image struck me: Barack Obama is a citizen of the world. Walking down the stage with his wife and two daughters, he defies boundaries and African-American clichés. Born of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, schooled in Ivy-League Universities before settling down in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park,the President-Elect has all of the traits of today global melting pot. This puts him in a unique position to understand the global challenges that we are facing, and to reunite the United States with the world, a world that cheered the news of his election.

I was in Hawaii when Obama visited his silent hero of grand-mother before she passed away, two days before the historic election of a grand-son she helped raise. I did not get a chance to meet him though. I wish. Journalist Pico Iyer did; he recently recounted his chance encounter with Obama in Hawaii while he was eating a burger with world traveler and novelist Paul Theroux. They both noted that “this sparkling stranger was so much like the kind of people we meet in Paris, in Hong Kong, in the Middle East: difficult to place and connected to everywhere. Like the air of his home island, he spoke for the dawning global melting pot of today.”

The economy continues to dominate the headlines but the other global challenge that the new Administration will also be judged on is how they will deal with Energy and Global Warming. The Senate finallly extended tax credits for renewable energy part of the Bailout Plan but all remains to be done for the United States to lead the fight on Global Warming and shape the future Cap&Trade system, part of the financial reforms that are necessary. Barack Obama is expected to use his executive orders to try to have an immediate impact and restore domestic confidence, yet his ability to engage foreign leaders will be put at test to find a long-term solution.

The Rudd Government in Australia released last week a model that shows that fighting global warming and rebuilding a sound economy are not at odds: over the next 15 years green commitments will only hit the GDP by 0.1 %. Worse, the countries that will wait too long to invest in clean technologies will see their attractiveness and competitiveness decline. I hope the new US administration will come to the same conclusion in the months to come and act promptly.