Jose Maria Figueres proudly served his country in the mid 90’s, during which time he passed a nationwide carbon tax (’95). Now he continues to exhibit superb leadership in the environmental/business sector. We met during a media announcement of the Carbon War Room. He is chairman of the board for the War Room, which has an innovative idea for providing alternative jet fuel to airlines (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/04/idUS69743+04-Dec-2011+BW20111204).

I was happy to see a local, San Diego based company on the list of jet-fuel providers – Sapphire Energy.

For those unfamiliar with the org, “Carbon War Room works on breaking down market barriers for capital to flow to entrepreneurial solutions to climate change, by employing a sector-based approach focusing on the solutions that make economic sense right now.”

Over the weekend, I attended the World Climate Summit, which is the premier event for private sector participants. The CEO of the Carbon War Room, Jigar Shah, spoke eloquently of the role PPPs to establish effective and scalable projects in renewable energy.