Even Trump Can’t Stop America’s Green Transition, Says Biden’s Top Climate Adviser

The second is whether we continue to deal with more and more people in transition. We’ve got over 100,000 farmers and ranchers who are now adopting climate-smart agricultural practices. That climate action, that climate action delivery, will continue to expand?

The last thing is how good we are at creating the things we want to create. Steel in the ground. One of the things we’re trying to develop as a discipline is a professionalization in developing social licenses around these new technologies so they can scale. When a tower goes up, will the community feel like they’ve built barns together to make sure we can build at the speed we need, like they haven’t been shortchanged?

We’ve talked about economic and industrial leadership, but political leadership is really important. For the second time in five years, Trump has hinted at withdrawing the US from the Paris accord. Wouldn’t that make it harder to hit the trajectory you’re describing?

Could this action end US climate leadership or help us make the progress we need to make? no But it carries with it symbolism and perhaps many second-order effects.

We have had a climate headquarters in the West Wing since the beginning of this administration. A new team. Gina McCarthy led it, now I do. We’ve got senior directors in my team who focus on every sector of the economy with science, business, engineering, policy backgrounds.

What happens when you don’t focus at the highest level with enough commitment to very talented people? What happens when the United States shows up in multilateral fora or bilateral dialogue and does not prioritize the rules of the road for a clean energy economy?

I think what will happen is American workers are sidelined in the US race for clean energy jobs, and we reduce our influence globally. Not only will the climate stand still in the next four years, our competitors aren’t slowing down either—to take advantage of clean energy technologies, for global impact.

Four years is not a long time. You must have come to this thought about the second term. Are you thinking about the things you wanted to do but couldn’t?

The big thing is, number one, sectors where we haven’t reached escape velocity. For the sake of our economy we must continue to push. This is unfinished business that needs to be addressed by state and local governments, the private sector, and hopefully the federal government.

The second thing is making sure that we are investing enough in talent and workforce. We have a bad habit in this country of draining talent from the top and not investing in institutions that draw more people into the workforce. Union that front; Biden spent a lot of time promoting apprenticeships.