Opinion | Don’t Let China Win the Green Race

How? Just think about the options we could explore. We could expand the electric vehicle tax credit, making it fully refundable at the time of purchase. That means a person wouldn’t have to wait a year for their tax refund but would receive money back immediately when buying an electric vehicle. If these credits are tied to domestic manufacturing, private sector jobs will return to auto industry towns.

We could add two zeros to the end of the budget for ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, taking it from a few hundred million to tens of billions of dollars. We could double the budgets for the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Office of Science. The aggregate current level for these two would increase to around $18 billion from about $9 billion. Each support renewable energy research and are critical for the type of disruptive innovation necessary to meet the scale and urgency of the climate challenge.

We could use an infrastructure bank to finance a high-speed rail system to relieve congestion, reduce pollution, increase energy efficiency, and provide alternatives to regional air travel. Although the California experience shows how local zoning concerns and cost overruns present challenges, the lessons learned show that we need a clear road map before implementation, rather than an ad hoc approach.

We could match China’s annual investment in public-private partnerships. Whereas China spent $126 billion on renewable energy investments in 2016, we spent just over $40 billion. We need more examples like the Department of Energy working with the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a group launched by Richard Branson and 20 other leaders committed to making renewable energy technologies less expensive and more commercially viable. Last month, a Bill Gates-backed start-up achieved a breakthrough using artificial intelligence and mirrors. This new technology harnesses the sun’s energy to create heat hot enough for carbon-free industrial processes, like making concrete. Another place for investment is in electric car batteries, which need a range of closer to a thousand miles than a few hundred. Home energy storage systems and solar cells must also become smaller and more convenient.

Energy is the largest market the world has ever seen. Four to five billion people consume energy today. That figure will increase to nine billion in 30 years. Today we have 2.3 million clean energy jobs. A national strategy focused on winning the clean energy race can create millions of new jobs, considering solar panel installer and wind turbine technician jobs are already expected to grow at around 60 percent over the next decade.

America can claim credit for many of the last century’s greatest contributions to humanity. We did not lead simply by opposing great powers, but by setting the standard for scientific and technological advances. Our China strategy should be premised on becoming the undisputed global leader in the new energy market, and the nation all others seek to emulate in tackling the climate change crisis.

John Kerry (@JohnKerry) was a Democratic senator from Massachusetts before becoming secretary of state in the Obama administration. Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) is a Democratic member of the House of Representatives from California’s 17th District, which includes Silicon Valley.