Colin Cunliff

AI promises to help cities save money, address infrastructure needs, and reduce emissions. But to unlock these benefits and help smart cities reach their full potential, the federal government has an important role to play in funding RD&D and facilitating cooperation.

A landmark report released today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) issues a clarion call for more clean energy innovation, finding that “deep decarbonization is technically feasible, but proactive innovation is essential.”

The U.S. government should triple its annual investment in energy innovation over the next five years to speed clean energy transitions around the world and build advanced-energy industries at home.

America has successfully launched national innovation missions time and again.

Alarmists claim the tech sector’s carbon footprint is mushrooming out of control. But they wildly misrepresent the facts. Not only is the ICT sector making significant progress in decarbonizing, but ICT is also a powerful technology that enables other sectors to become more energy efficient.

Lawmakers should make energy innovation a national imperative, and at least double U.S. investment in clean energy RD&D by 2025.

Unless Congress takes specific action to reverse the administration’s plans, the president’s budget request will become binding on federal energy RD&D programs, eliminating vital activities.

Congress has soundly rejected the administration’s previous budget proposals in this area, instead putting forward a positive vision for U.S. innovation that invests in a future of clean, reliable, low-cost energy. Lawmakers should do so again in fiscal year 2021.

As the House and Senate consider comprehensive energy legislation, these 10 priorities have already won the support of large bipartisan majorities at the committee level in at least one chamber. They should form the nucleus of a bipartisan energy package that gets signed into law this year.

Clean energy innovation has bipartisan public support and has successfully expand the use of solar and wind power. As Colin Cunliff writes in for Issues in Science and Technology, it’s now time for policymakers to expand the clean energy portfolio to address gaps in the current innovation agenda.

Growing animus toward “Big Tech” companies and generalized opposition to technological innovation engenders support for policies that are expressly designed to inhibit it. That is deeply problematic for future progress, prosperity, and competitiveness.

Despite concern over climate change, global carbon emissions continue to rise. Clean energy innovation is needed to reverse the trend. It is time for Mission Innovation member nations to make good on their commitment to double clean energy RD&D.