Earth Equity News

Level of Funding in Stimulus Package for Green Projects Must be Maintained, Agues New Report. By Kate Sheppard, Grist, July 28, 2009. "With climate change among the world's biggest security challenges, the Obama administration should be pumping much more money into addressing the problem, argues a new report [not yet released] from the Institute for Policy Studies. In fiscal year 2008, the United States invested 20 times more money in developing military technology than in developing clean energy technology. The U.S. also spent 50 times as much arming the rest of the world as it did helping other countries transition to clean energy. Altogether, in FY 2008, the U.S. government spent $88 on funding the military for every $1 spent on projects to stabilize the climate. Compared to the Bush administration, the Obama administration has already increased climate spending, particularly via the economic stimulus package passed earlier this year. But climate change demands much more significant investment, according to report author Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies... The Obama administration should make its investment in curbing climate change a clear priority in the budget, explicitly calling out the funds for the public to see, said Pemberton. Right now, the funding is scattered throughout various parts of the budget, and Pemberton had to do a lot of digging to even find out the total amount being spent on climate. '[Climate change] is the huge challenge of our time,' she said. 'We ought to be able to know what the government is really investing in it.' Pemberton recommends that the Obama administration maintain the levels of climate spending from this year's stimulus package. Military spending is still far larger, but there is at least more balance between the two, she said. 'The administration takes so much more seriously this climate change challenge than its predecessor,' said Pemberton, 'but they're really going to have to sustain this investment in the regular budget.'"