The President’s Climate Action Plan | Executive Office of the President

While no single step can reverse the effects of climate change, we have a moral obligation to future generations to leave them a planet that is not polluted and damaged. Through steady, responsible action to cut carbon pollution, we can protect our children’s health and begin to slow the effects of climate change so that we leave behind a cleaner, more stable environment.

In 2009, President Obama made a pledge that by 2020, America would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels if all other major economies agreed to limit their emissions as well. Today, the President remains firmly committed to that goal and to building on the progress of his first term to help put us and the world on a sustainable long-term trajectory. Thanks in part to the Administration’s success in doubling America’s use of wind, solar, and geothermal energy and in establishing the toughest fuel economy standards in our history, we are creating new jobs, building new industries, and reducing dangerous carbon pollution which contributes to climate change. In fact, last year, carbon emissions from the energy sector fell to the lowest level in two decades. At the same time, while there is more work to do, we are more energy secure than at any time in recent history. In 2012, America’s net oil imports fell to the lowest level in 20 years and we have become the world’sleading producer of natural gas – the cleanest-burning fossil fuel.

Read the whole plan at whitehouse.gov.

Solar firm targets steady growth | Toledo Blade

Job fair for veterans seeks staff for plant under way in Napoleon

BY KRIS TURNER

NAPOLEON — The solar-panel machinery inside Isofoton USA’s sprawling Napoleon facility is spaced out like giant puzzle pieces.

Machines are arranged in a line across the length of the former warehouse. Some of the equipment is ready to be strung together, while other pieces are positioned for the delivery of more machinery.

A few of the solar-panel manufacturer’s 12 employees tended to the equipment Friday, getting things ready for the company’s December ramp-up deadline.

“It’s like solar world around here,” said Michael Peck, chairman of Isofoton USA, who was in Napoleon on Friday for a veterans job fair being held by the company. (more…)

Red, White and Green: The True Colors of America’s Clean Tech Jobs | DBL Investors

September 2012—a new white paper from DBL Shows Red States Lead in Green Job Growth

Clean tech may cre­ate a highly par­ti­san debate in Wash­ing­ton D.C., but in the rest of coun­try, it cre­ates jobs. A new report exam­ines the sharp con­trasts between polit­i­cal rhetoric and on-the-ground real­ity, and shows that red states – not blue states – are lead­ing clean tech or “green job” growth.

The report, “Red, White and Green: The True Col­ors of America’s Clean Tech Jobs” authored by Nancy Pfund, Man­ag­ing Part­ner, DBL Investors and Michael Lazar, a Yale Uni­ver­sity grad­u­ate stu­dent, demon­strates the grow­ing impor­tance of the clean tech indus­try in both red and blue states, and espe­cially in swing states. (more…)

Solar Energy: Napoleon’s Solar Campaign | Site Selection

Isofoton, based in Malaga, Spain, was formed in 1981 as a spin-off project at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. The global firm, which operates a factory in the Andalusia Technology Park in Malaga, formed Isofoton North America about 10 years ago with the idea of entering the U.S. market. Michael Peck, chairman of Isofoton North America, says the company’s management has long seen the U.S. market as a major opportunity, and spent three years validating the potential supply chain in Ohio before making the decision last year to locate in Napoleon, a town of about 10,000 located 40 miles (64 km.) southwest of Toledo. (more…)