While the U.N. conference in Copenhagen fell flat in yielding substantive commitments in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the Democrat’s Cap and Trade bill is dwindling on the floor of the U.S. Congress, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, likely headed for a landslide defeat in Britain’s June elections, has unveiled a two-pronged approach to employ “smart” power throughout the country. By placing smart energy meters in every British home by 2020 that read consumption levels and calculate costs in real time, along with a smart grid system that connects the entire country and estimates energy demand and production, affording U.K. consumers the ability to be energy and cost efficient. British Gas estimates that the company will create 2,600 jobs by 2012 by converting to smart meters.

Though Obama’s stand against global warming is far superior to that of his predecessor, who largely ignored the issue, a 17% cut in emissions by 2020 is not adequate, considering India’s pledge to cut emissions by 25% and China’s pledge to cut roughly between 40 and 45 per cent of emissions. Certainly, extraneous intangibles are abound, but these ambitious countries will out-compete us tomorrow unless we ramp up our efforts today.

In the fight against climate change, we must set a higher standard. This president has also made steps, albeit baby steps in developing similar smart grid and meter technology, in October offering out 3.4 billion in grants to over 100 companies to fund development.

Creating jobs through funding of sustainable energy projects isn’t just cut and dry, though. Many of the jobs in the industry are for engineers and scientists, requiring credentials that don’t match those of scores of unemployed. Converting to alternative sources of energy, as the Brits are showing, is a revolutionary concept for spurring modern economic growth. While the CBO projects that Cap and Trade proposals will make marginal cuts in GDP over the next few decades, small-scale, green tech efforts will bolster our flagging economy in the short term and ensure environmental sustainability in the long run.

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