“Obama made everyone in the US feel good about themselves. And in Europe he made people want to like America again. He collected a huge amount of political capital. He now has to invest it in transformational change and make sure people and other nations buy into this change”. This is a quote from Michael Ryan, Defence Advisor of the US Mission to the European Union. He was one of the speakers during the seminar “After the Vote: Implications of the US Elections for Foreign Policy, Climate Change and International Security” in the European Parliament. The following is what I learned from the seminar. We need a new transatlantic leadership that deals with climate change in the same way it has dealt with the Montreal Protocol in the nineties. In a relatively short period it phased out 96% of the CFCs. We need to learn from Kennedy’s transformation of the US space program: “Man on the Moon”. Maybe we should rally around: “Energy Independence”. Since the financial crisis a larger role of the state is possible: the state could – like in Australia - ban inefficient light bulbs from retailers. Ban inefficient energy use in office buildings. Set standards for military energy procurement. The savings of these measures are enormous: e.g. the average costs of fuel for a military vehicle are now three dollars a gallon; in the field this price increases to forty two dollars. The military seem to be ready – they just published the Environmental Guidebook for Military Operations. It is up to us to make change happen!
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