Approximately 100 Piedmonters gathered in the Piedmont Community Hall Monday night to discuss climate change and what they can do at home to reduce their greenhouse gases.

This was not a discussion about whether or not climate change is real or if climate change is caused by humans. Those issues were accepted as true. This was an event to hear three speakers talk about climate change and how Piedmont and Oakland residents — and citizens across the globe — can positively affect it.

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Piedmont’s event featured three speakers: Stanford University’s Dan Reicher, who is the executive director for the Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford; Oakland Sustainability Program Manager Daniel Hamilton; and Piedmont Mayor Margaret Fujioka.

Reicher, who attended the Paris talks, said in order to have a successful energy future, the world has to work on technology, policy and finance.

“If there ever was something that put us in this situation, it’s CO2, it’s climate change and it’s real,” he said.

He explained that the whole world needs to “dramatically, dramatically” cut emissions in order to avoid a catastrophic future. As far as technology is concerned there are more than 10,000 companies in the United States that produce clean energy technology.

“The bad news is, it’s not like developing the next app. It’s very, very difficult,” he said. New technology does come around, he added, but it’s a tough road to get them to scale and where it’s cost effective.

For policy, Reicher said there have to be more tax credits and incentives for people to embrace the new, energy-efficient technologies that are out there.

And for finance, Reicher said, billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars, need to be spent on the deployment of clean energy.

“You develop the right technology, you put the right technology in place and then you have to have a lot of capital,” he said.

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