Retooling the U. S. economy to a low-carbon and environmentally sustainable future must begin immediately. With energy the largest component of the U. S. and the global economy, this task takes on mammoth proportions due to the complexity and interdisciplinary focus that will be required. The scale of the recent bailout, roughly $700 billion, is ironically comparable to the imported fuel bill that the U. S. pays each year. Thus even before addressing the climate impacts of our current energy system, we currently live with an equivalent sunk cost in imported fossil fuels each year.

The recent economic downturn makes the challenge of launching new programs even more politically challenging. An energy agenda focused on innovation and sustainability provides the opportunity to usher in a new energy system that combines job creation, stabilized energy costs and global leadership for an economically and environmentally sustainable 21st Century.

The international scientific consensus is that an 80 percent or more reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions is needed.Even with reductions of this magnitude, however, the risk of significant ecological and environmental harm remains significant. Thankfully, President Obama has been a clear voice for change to a new set of policies that charts a course to a low-carbon, economically viable and sustainable future.

Among the many tasks that must be addressed in developing a clean energy economy are:

• Establish and make operational a clear overall vision of an integrated energy and climate policy framework. This is job number 1. The scope and complexity of the energy sector demand that any effort to make such a profound change reach across all government agencies and across all aspects of our society. This degree of integration requires a framing vision. President Obama has already voiced such an inclusive and clear vision in campaign statements. The challenge for the next several years is to make this exceptional vision operational.

• Develop and utilize metrics that permit an evaluation of the security impacts of our energy and economic choices. Today the energy and greenhouse gas implications of many of our decisions from personal to city, state and federal levels are hidden from us. Without metrics that make the impacts of our choices explicit, it is impossible to ask diverse government agencies, private citizens and industries to make low-carbon planning an integral part of their decision-making process.

• Invest seriously in energy research, development and deployment. Total investment in all areas of research and development in the US stands at roughly three percent of the gross domestic product, but, for energy, it is only about one-tenth of that level. With energy vital to our economic, geopolitical and environmental security, the research investment needs to be increased dramatically and then sustained.

• Implement a price for greenhouse gas emissions. Without a price on greenhouse gas emissions we fight an uphill and potentially impossible battle. A price signal not only rewards clean energy decisions, but also unleashes diverse powers of innovation. The current debate over the best form of this price is a vital one, but it must be one where everyone approaches the issue knowing that some price is necessary.

• Encourage, reward and learn from low-carbon innovations at all scales. Over 700 cities and several states have implemented innovative low-carbon policies. These efforts are vital to making a sustainable energy economy pervasive and these diverse and distributed efforts serve as the vital test-bed for efforts that can be implemented at the national and international level.

• Invest aggressively in energy efficiency. Energy efficiency efforts in a number of cities, states and in a range of federal programs have proven to be exceptionally good investments-in many cases returning the investment at once, to a matter of weeks, months, or few years. Even without the aggressive energy efficiency efforts, annual savings from the best lighting, heating and insulation programs save the nation several hundred billion dollars per year.

• Prioritize research, planning and deployment of clean-energy enabling transmission and storage technology. The growth of the renewable energy sector is critically dependent on the expansion of transmission capacity links from the areas of best solar and wind energy supply to population centers and industry.

• Focus on sustainable transportation. A range of low-carbon transportation options exist and a greatly increased set of technologies and practices are needed. Low-carbon and ecologically sustainable fuels, the significant expansion of the use of hybrid and fully-electric vehicles, increased mass-transit options, all have potential to reduce the environmental (and economic) impact of our transportation options.

• Assert a global leadership role in climate protection. It is vital that the U.S. fully embraces this issue, and becomes a global leader. Addressing the risk of significant climate change will require an estimated 80 percent or more reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions over the next five decades.

• Make sustainable communities a hallmark of U. S. development assistance and poverty alleviation. The poor worldwide suffer directly and immediately from air pollution and a lack of locally sustainable energy resources for economic development. While a number of useful programs exist, sustainable energy services for the poor could be far more central to overseas aid and development projects. Sustainable energy- from improved stoves to locally produced and managed solar, wind, hydropower and biofuel resources-can also directly improve social and economic opportunities for disadvantaged minority groups, women and children.

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