Rick Allen: “One thing that we need to do more of with both China and India, they are going to be using some coal. Both have supplies…”

“One thing that we need to do more of with both China and India, they are going to be using some coal. Both have supplies of coal. They are developing their economies faster than other countries around the world, both are in different ways. But the best technology we have for clean coal use we ought to be making sure gets transferred to the Chinese and the Indians so they can do the best they can in holding down emissions. I want to say a couple of other things about the U.S. position. It struck me that the problem was not that the United States did nothing, but that our reach was so short. By rejecting any effort to set targets and timetables for getting to more renewable energy, we were basically sitting back on the primary issue before the conference. I would say the administration took several positions. They said we want to establish partnerships, partnerships between governments and the private sector and the nonprofit sector. Many of them were rolled out, and many of them I think are going to make a contribution. There is nothing wrong with a proposal for partnerships that deal with some of these environmental issues. The administration was also saying that we need to insist on good governance because so often aid money has been wasted when it goes to governments that are corrupt or inefficient; and that, too, makes good sense.”