Energy Official Advocates Climate Adaptation

John M. Deutch, who served in multiple capacities for the Department of Energy and later directed the Central Intelligence Agency under President Bill Clinton, lectured Wednesday on the future of global energy, expressing a need for adaptation and not just mitigation to climate change.

"I cannot avoid the conclusion that pretty substantial climate change is highly likely...and that it is impossible for the world to avoid it by mitigation,” said Deutch, who currently serves as an Institute Professor at MIT in the Chemistry Department.

In a lecture titled “Big Unanswered Questions About Our Energy Future,” Deutch discussed the world’s environmental trajectory by posing what he considered to be the most pressing questions regarding global climate change.

Reflecting on his time working in the Department of Energy, Deutch emphasized the importance of having a national energy plan that is comprehensive in scope and objective, but specific in terms of quantitative projections.

“If you don’t have an energy plan to follow, how do you decide what program to follow? How do you decide how to allocate available public resources?” Deutch asked.

Deutch said he believed that the only “true national energy plan” in United States history was in 1978 under President Jimmy Carter’s administration, but that its quantitative projections were highly inaccurate.

In contrast, Deutch expressed that he believed President Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan lacked the clearly stated objectives, milestones, and quantitative details necessary for it to be considered a national energy plan.

Recognizing the current tendency to focus its environmental efforts on mitigation of climate change, Deutch insisted that the nation should instead concentrate on adapting to life after climate change, which he viewed as nearly unavoidable. He also proposed major reforms to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“I would split it in two, much like the separation was done years ago in the nuclear area when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy were split,” Deutch said.

Deutch recommended having one of the new agencies responsible for inspection and enforcement of regulations, while the other resulting agency would cover technology development. He noted that under its current structure, the EPA’s resources are being stretched too far.

Harvard Kennedy School student Takaaki Sashida said he found it interesting that the lecture raised many issues that Deutch acknowledged he could not answer.

“That kind of reflects the complexities of the issues that he is dealing with,” Sashida said.

Deutch was invited to lecture as part of the Harvard Center for the Environment’s “Future of Energy” Series—a lecture series that began in 2006.