Washington, October 24: President Barack Obama has criticized US financial system for jeopardizing America’s economy and national security and has called for a green-energy economic model.
Speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a leading university in science and technology, the US president told academicians in Boston on Friday that America needed to abandon its fossil-fuel dependence and harvest renewable atmospheric and solar energy — along with other clean energy sources — in order to win a place in the future race for a leading economy.
Obama underscored the importance of such an initiative for a sustainable economy and demanded a transformation of the nation’s current fiscal paradigm via shifting the economic structure from traditional fossil fuel dependency to reliance on recyclable modes of energy.
“This system of energy that powers our economy also undermines our security and endangers our planet,” said Obama.
He also slammed conservative reservations on so-called ‘green energy development’, noting that unless the US opts for a structural change in its energy supply mechanism, it will lose the multi-trillion-dollar energy industries race to emerging world powers including China and India.
“From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways of producing and using energy,” Obama stated. “The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation.”
The US president also used the speech to advance his administration’s energy and climate policies, identifying the federal government’s several billion dollar spending scheme as an historic measure to boost new research in the clean energy field.
However, the US president cautioned against complacency and obstacles in moving towards a clean-energy economy and hinted at the traditionalists’ opposition hampering the promotion of his Democratic Party agenda.
“There’s going to be a lot of debate about how we move from an economy that’s importing oil to one that’s exporting clean energy technology; how we harness the innovative potential on display here at M.I.T. to create millions of new jobs; and how we will lead the world to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.”
Despite Obama’s claims of large spending plans for green energy initiatives, the United States’ economy will remain oil-driven for the next few decades, which are being dubbed as the ‘transitional period’ from fossil fuel energy to renewable power sources, scientists say.
—–Agencies