Leaders weigh impact of warming on budgets

Global Warming Initiatives is anticipating a favorable change in business climate. The Raleigh consulting company can thank the environmental phenomenon that serves as its namesake.

James Haven, Global Warming president and chief executive officer, was one of 275 participants from private industry, academia and government who gathered Monday at the North Carolina Summit on Energy Efficiency in Raleigh.

With global warming increasingly accepted as scientific fact, business and political leaders are shifting the debate to dealing with the environmental impacts of climate change while meeting the nation's insatiable appetite for electricity and other forms of energy.

"We cannot curb, nor meet, our energy needs without spending money," Jo Anne Sanford, a Raleigh consultant and a former state regulator, told the crowd at the North Raleigh Hilton. "It is a lot of money we're talking about."

For Haven and other green energy entrepreneurs, the gathering presented a business development opportunity. Many businesses are just now sorting through the cost-benefit-analysis of climate change and energy efficiency. Haven noted that businesses that demonstrate reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in the future could benefit from tax breaks or other rewards.

"They don't realize that their energy use reduction is almost a one-for-one reduction in greenhouse gas emissions," Haven said. "We're trying to get them to understand that if they don't measure it now, they have no way to track it."

It appears increasingly likely that North Carolina's electric utilities will be required to tap renewable energy and efficiency programs to meet growing energy demand, and the extra cost will be passed on to customers. And many expect Congress to tax carbon dioxide emissions or create other disincentives for industries that produce the greenhouse gas.

This year Duke Energy of Charlotte vowed to set aside 1 percent of its revenues in the Carolinas, or $50 million, for programs that help customers cut energy use.