U.S. needs national energy, climate policy: GE CEO

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) – The United States needs to develop a national climate change policy, but also recognize that coal and other fossil fuels will remain an important energy source for decades, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co. said on Saturday.

Setting a blanket national policy would make it easier for companies to adapt than allowing a patchwork of state laws, Jeff Immelt said at a conference on the future of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, outside Boston.


“If we get 50 different energy policies in the United States, you never achieve enough scale to be good at anything,” Immelt said.

European Union leaders agreed on Friday to binding measures calling for the 27-nation bloc to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Washington has resisted setting a national target, although a few states, including California, have taken up the issue.

Reuters