Climate Change, Copenhagen and Jobs

Now that the Copenhagen summit is done and everyone is heading back home to figure out what to do with it, everyone is publishing articles about just that- what they think of the deal and what they are going to do about it/ with it.

I read a great one for about four sentences that said the Copenhagen agreement meant essentially nothing to entrepreneurs- as in there are no clear things like targets or markets to walk away with and use as goals or building blocks. I read a great interview with the New York Times’ Thomas Freidman where he says what Obama should have done is told China that the U.S. would bury them in clean tech and essentially start an arms race- style international battle for clean tech supremacy. Great idea- Obama’s not much of a battle starter, though. He’s more on the diplomatic side, trying to keep everyone on ok terms with each other.

The interesting thing is that both articles point to the necessity of new green jobs and crafting the new economy on green tech. Right now the entire establishment around the world needs to change- and there are going to be some big losers in this game, meaning anyone with an established energy business, and some big winners, meaning there will be something along the lines of the silicon valley of the 90’s that then gives us the solar panel equivalent of Google. That will be awesome.

I grew up in Wisconsin and I’m flying there this week to visit my family for the Holiday, which will be great. But it got me thinking about what the post-Copenhagen green job / economy etc. push will mean for the Midwest, where innovation is not the talk of the town, but an awful lot of the real work that makes things happen gets done. Wisoconsin senator Jim Doyle has a circuitous but telling take on this:

“So in Wisconsin, why does a regular person who is working at a job, raising their kids, trying to do the right thing in the world, wanting to be environmentally responsible – Why do they get involved in this? Well, hopefully they get involved because it’s the right thing to do. But I think more importantly, they’ll get involved in it because the economy will benefit so much from it. And so I just see this really as an opportunity. Now it’s not that everybody sees that opportunity and we certainly have our fights over it. But in the long run it seems to me the economics of this are overpowering of what the possibilities are.”

My first reactions are: Man, Doyle is so obviously from the Midwest and what in tarnation is he trying to talk about?

He talks a lot about the manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin (highest percentage of manufacturing workers in the state out of the entire U.S.) and how the key thing about green jobs is that they are good for the economy, regardless of what you believe with regard to climate change (he’s got to be open enough for some of his constituents with the climate change skeptic thing).

So I’m seeing this as a big trend for 2010. Copenhagen happened and it’s really nothing. But everyone signed something. Good.

Now it’s up to all of us to start making the blood and guts of it work by creating a green tech economy.