Emerging Companies Partner Authors Article on Encouraging ‘Green’ Innovation in California

San Jose Mercury News
February.13.2013

This article, authored by emerging companies partner Daniel Yost, discusses his original idea for how to encourage green innovation in California. An excerpt from the article is included below.

California has a unique opportunity to use competition to combat climate change and generate jobs and innovation. By leveraging a very modest share of revenue from California's new cap-and-trade program to award an annual Green Prize, California can motivate and inspire innovators to leverage their intellectual and financial capital to solve our climate change crisis.

There is a pool of money available for reducing or mitigating climate change generated from the sale of pollution "allowances" under AB 32, California's cap-and-trade program that went into effect last fall. According to Gov. Jerry Brown's recent proposed budget and an analysis by the Legislative Analyst's Office, the pool will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars this fiscal year and multiple billions over coming years. From that pool, California should set aside one or more buckets of $10 million a year for an annual Green Prize for innovators who are first to achieve some specific groundbreaking technology that meets thoughtfully established, published criteria.