Energy Probe

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10 Essential problems

Generation announces plans for new investment management firm

H. R. 1835 To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to encourage alternative energy investments and job creation.

A study on the potential risks of Compressed Natural Gas vehicles. 

The response to the ozone crisis by DuPont, the inventor of CFCs and the largest producer of ozone depleting chemicals in the world is a prime example of the 3D corporate strategy.

The television commerical could easily be mistaken for a pitch to join an environmental organization. It features barking sea lions, playful otters, jumping dolphins, waddling penguins. The world as seen through the camera lens is clean and fresh, brilliant and invigorating. With a full orchestral score of Beethoven's Ode To Joy welling up in the background, the feeling is overwhelmingly buoyant.

When the US withdrew from the Kyoto agreement on climate change in March 2001, the world was shocked. Kyoto represented the only mechanism obliging developed nations to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the press that: "The president has been unequivocal … He does not support the Kyoto treaty. It is not in the United States' economic best interest."

In January 1985, not long after I took over the international environment portfolio at the State Department, I led a small American delegation to a little-noticed meeting in Geneva. There, the U.S., Canada, and a few like-minded countries tried, and ultimately failed in the face of strong opposition from other governments, to achieve a multilateral agreement to limit use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The event attracted only perfunctory attention in the press, and its unremarkable results occasioned no diplomatic ripples in national capitals.

Introduction

It's a pleasure to be here today to discuss the imperative for an expanded commitment to sustainability and sustainable growth - for DuPont, for industry in general, and for all sectors of society.