Former California State Controller and investor Steve Westly addressed the VerdeXchange 2018 Conference to illustrate how the new Internet of Things data-driven economy is evolving from the oil and auto industry economy, lifting innovation to irreversible heights around the globe. Westly explains how California is playing a crucial leadership role.
VX News presents an edited transcript of the panel “Peak Oil and Green Energy: Both Fossils?” from the Milken Institute’s Global Conference, April 26-29 in Santa Monica. Moderated by Greg Dalton, host of the podcast ClimateOne, the panel features Ian Wright, CEO of Wrightspeed and co-founder of Tesla; Cathy Zoi, director of the Energy Transformation Collaborative at Stanford and incoming CEO of SunEdison’s Rural Electric Company; and Scott Jacobs, CEO and co-founder of Generate Capital. They discuss the death of the “peak oil” issue, the challenges facing the popularization of clean energy technology, and whether the renewable energy industry really needs a technological breakthrough—or just a change in the way it does business.
On October 6, Richard Kauffman, Chairman of Energy and Finance at the New York State Office of the Governor, and Mary Nichols, Chairman of the California Air Resources Board, spoke with Dr. JR DeShazo of UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs at the GloSho 2014 opening plenary titled, “Fireside Chat: Two Clean Economy Titans.” While Nichols has background in government policy and environmental advocacy, Kauffman brings decades of experience in clean technology and innovation in the private sector to the conversation. VerdeXchange News presents edited excerpts from the panel, including answers to audience questions. The conversation focuses on the public sector’s catalyzing role for innovation in both the California and New York clean-technology private sector.
The inaugural VerdeXchange Arizona conference in October will bring together business leaders and politicians who are helping to build Arizona and the west through sustainability, infrastructure and international business projects.
Tom Rand is a well-known investor and entrepreneur and is the Cleantech Practice Lead Advisor at theMaRS Discovery District in Toronto, Canada. Ahead of an LAEDC trade mission to Toronto, VX asks Rand how markets are beginning to reflect the realities of climate change and what parallels exist between cleantech investment in California and Canada. Rand notes that as the pressures of climate change emerge, industries across all sectors, from mining to forestry to manufacture, will have to plan carefully to reduce carbon emissions as part of staying flexible with a changing economy. <See: http://vxcanada.ca/>