At the climate talks in Copenhagen, the American solar industry stepped into center ring with SEIA’s report on the effects faster deployment of solar energy could have on climate change. Seizing the Solar Solution: Combating Climate Change through Accelerated Deployment (PDF) makes the case for obtaining 15 percent of our total energy needs from solar by 2020. 12 percent from electric-producing solar (both photovoltaics and concentrated solar, which uses solar thermal technology), and three percent from solar hot water energy offsets. Doing so, says SEIA, could reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent while affording nearly 900,000 new jobs. (The report is a joint publication with the solar industry associations of many other countries, and there are sections as well for Canada, the Sunbelt countries, the EU, China, India, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand.)

Renewable Energy World summarized the report’s findings and quoted SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch on the issue:

Solar energy is our immediate solution. The solar industry is ready now to do more, do it faster and create jobs. The only things holding solar back are antiquated policies developed over the last century that favor polluting sources of energy. Ultimately, it’s important to have a price on pollution, but U.S. policymakers need to enact the provisions in the Solar Bill of Rights to make an immediate difference in addressing climate change.

The three magic words for solar development are policy, policy, policy. As Connie mentions in her year-end summary of the German solar market, a country’s solar resource (available sunlight) isn’t what makes or breaks success in the industry. Dedicated systems to facilitate the growth of the industry are necessary, and the high cost of the technology involved has deterred the private sector from making headway on this alone. Government support in the form of policy architecture and funding is what has propelled solar in Europe, and is beginning to on home soil as well.