The Future of Clean Energy
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Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief. This is FPLive. How will history judge the Biden administration? I guess it depends on which issue you want to focus on. But if you take climate change, for example, there is little doubt that the current White House exerted significant political capital to promote a bold climate agenda.

Now, climate activists can and will criticize the administration's record oil and gas production. And they can also say that the United States hasn't done enough to help the least developed countries with mitigation and adaptation. Fair criticisms.

But still, the Inflation Reduction Act, weirdly named as it is, created massive incentives for companies to invest in clean energy. And the question on everyone's minds seems to be, will the next White House roll back that progress? Can market forces push back? And if so, how?

Well, my guest this week is the president's senior advisor for international climate policy, John Podesta. He's also a former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and has handled more than one presidential transition. So later in the interview, we will get to his views on the Trump transition as well. As always, we love hearing from you. Our email is live at foreignpolicy.com. Let's dive in.

John, welcome to FP Live. Ravi, thank you for having me on. It's a real pleasure. So let's start with a question on everyone's minds. Trump is a climate skeptic. He likes to say drill, baby, drill. If he tries to undo the Inflation Reduction Act, what happens to the advances your administration has made on prioritizing clean energy?

Well, look, I think the investments that are being made in the United States are very firm. I think they're happening all across the country, north, south, east, west. They were spurred on by the Inflation Reduction Act, which was the largest investment in climate change and clean energy, not just in the history of the United States, but in the history of the world. That's resulted in investments across the country, announced investments of

Nearly $500 billion or more than 330,000 jobs that have been created already in these industries. And those jobs are there now and those factories are being built now.

I think to try to walk away from that would be not only a mistake from the perspective of the climate and the existential threat that we face from climate change, but it would be a terrible error in terms of economic policy. You've seen clean energy become

have bipartisan support, I think, over the last couple of years as those industries have spread investments in batteries and electric vehicles from Georgia to Tennessee to Ohio and Michigan. You've seen deployment of batteries

new renewable power, again, all across the country with solar power now being the largest amount of new generation being installed in the United States. We've seen the solar supply chain return to the United States. So to say, you know, forget it and turn your back on that, I think would be, A, difficult to do because I think we've now seen a

number of Republican members of Congress say that don't get rid of the Inflation Reduction Act and the innovation that that spurred. So getting the votes in a very narrowly divided Congress would be difficult to begin with. But to go back to the premise of your question, there's no

question that the president-elect, the former president, Donald Trump has said climate change is a hoax. He doesn't take the problem seriously. I think he's an outlier in the world with respect to that. And we're feeling the effects of extreme weather that's climate induced all across the world. So I think there are things that he will do that will either attempt to reverse or reverse policies that we put in place

But with respect to the basic investments that have been, again, accelerated by the Inflation Reduction Act, I think those are here to stay.

You know, beyond the current role you have, you are, of course, one of the Democratic Party's premier strategists. And I'm curious whether in the implementation of the IRA, you and the Biden administration team sort of focused on so-called red states as areas in which to deploy a lot of the subsidies and the job creation. Well, you know, I think the policy that's baked into the way that the president formulated the Inflation Reduction Act was

was intended to drive investment to places that have been left out and left behind. Traditional energy communities, places that supported coal-fired power in the past, disadvantaged communities, etc.

The net effect of that by giving bonuses to making investments in those places that I think have felt a little bit abandoned in the modern economy ended up directing those investments, whether that wasn't the political strategy, that was a strategy that President Biden and Vice President Harris undertook because they wanted to see the fruits of this energy transition and the

power of investment going to places that needed the support, the manufacturing renaissance that we've seen going on in the Midwest and the Mid-South is really just astonishing. That was conscious, that was strategic, but it was really aimed at

making sure that those investments were reaching people that had for literally decades and decades powered our economy. They needed a place in this new economy. And I think we've delivered on that. So just on that, let's say we buy everything you just said. Could the case be made then that you and the Biden administration have formulated smart energy policies, but failed to market it well enough?

Well, I think that it takes a while after you pass legislation for average citizens to feel the effects of it. They did feel the effect. There are literally tens of thousands of people who are, for example, purchasing electric vehicles and getting a $7,500 credit at the point of sale when they purchase the vehicle. It's deducted from the bill that they're paying and

That's spurred new vehicle sales of both hybrids and fully electric vehicles. But I think it takes a while for the impact and the effect to be felt by citizens down at the street level. We tried to do everything we could to make sure that people understood the benefits that were flowing to the United States.

by spurring the level of economic activity and growth and innovation that I mentioned. But I think that will have a long tail. People will feel it for years to come. When it comes to trying to judge instantly whether the effect of the pandemic

it's had on the economy is something that, you know, people quickly understand. I, I have to say that other economic issues kind of tended to overwhelm it. I think the, the effect of inflation, uh, that was induced, uh, as a result of COVID and, and supply chain challenges, and then move through the system, uh, was probably the dominant, uh,

economic question that was on people's mind, even though inflation had come down substantially as a result of, I think, a lot of hard work by the administration and by the Federal Reserve. People were still feeling the effect of high prices, and that's tended to dominate the economic discussion.

But I think people, if you look at the underlying data, there's still very strong support for clean energy, for these clean energy policies, for deployment of renewables, still strong support for the movement towards cleaner forms of transportation. So you didn't see the public turn against clean energy anymore.

Indeed, I think you see super majorities in favor of it. And so I think the challenge that an incoming administration will have if it wants to reverse policy will be quite substantial because I think people, they want cleaner air, they want cleaner water, they understand that climate change is happening, that they want the federal government to take action. And I think that the kinds of policies

investments that we've been making have been really the envy of the world. And I think they've spurred other countries to get into the international side of this, to take similar actions. And you see that in GX in Japan, which you're familiar with, or what's going on in Europe with green industrial strategy, etc. I think this...

This notion that we need to build things to deal with climate change, not just shut things down, has really taken hold as the dominant strategy sort of going forward, whether you're in a middle-income country, a developing economy, or an advanced economy. The need to transition away from fossil fuels to invest in clean energy sources is

is being led with an investment led strategy. And that was pioneered, I think, by President Biden and Vice President Harris through the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law.

Well, let's see if any of those incentives can stay in place. You mentioned the rest of the world. Let's go there. I want to talk about the Paris Climate Accords. And I should point out the White House has been signaling it will submit a new NDC. That's a nationally determined contribution to the United Nations. This is required under the Paris Agreement. And there have been hopes that the Biden administration will signal much deeper cuts to future emissions.

And I understand that you and your team might have been waiting for the election results to make a formal submission. Why the delay now?

Well, look, we we've been analyzing. We need to be realistic in terms of what we think we can accomplish over promise and under deliver, but put forward what the president believes is an ambitious but realistic goal. If I go back to 2021, when the president came into office on the very first day, he signaled that he would rejoin the Paris agreement.

reestablished US leadership in the climate space. He appointed John Kerry, former Secretary of State, to be the climate envoy. And in combination with what he was doing domestically, reestablished that the United States would be both a good partner and ambitious in its goals in the international space.

He made a commitment in 2021 to reduce emissions in the U.S. by 50 to 52 percent against the baseline of what our emissions were in 2005. That needs to be updated in accordance with the Paris regime. That update is required by February, but we have the ability to do that now. But, John, if I may, you know, and...

When you travel around the world and you speak to counterparts in other countries, leaders of other countries, what credibility does the United States have when it pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords once? It will likely pull out again in January.

And so when you speak to your counterparts, what kind of response are you getting? I mean, how what what does the American sort of word mean publicly? Look, I think even during the first Trump term, you saw city states, subnational government at every level, the private sector step up, create

created what became known as the We're Still In movement, said we're going to continue on the path to reduce our own emissions. And particularly at that subnational level, you saw leadership coming from governors and mayors across the country. Just this morning, the EPA granted a waiver for California to proceed with its regulations of

that a number of other states follow, reduce its emissions in the transportation sector,

So, I think what we, you asked the question, why did you wait until now subsequent to the election? We've been working on this for a long time led by our efforts through our climate policy office at the White House, but working in an all of government fashion to decide what we could reasonably predict and produce if we were going to be ambitious.

And after the election, and we did a further scrub to try to really understand and work with the premier analysts, both inside the government and outside the government, to take a look at what the trends were, what investment patterns were, what the private sector was doing, but

importantly, what could be accomplished at the subnational level. There's no turning back on this. The question is the pace. And I think that the election of Donald Trump as opposed to Vice President Harris can definitely impact that. But the direction of travel is secure. We're on a path

as is the entire world towards moving away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner energy. And what we need to do is to be able to analyze and be credible about what can happen if you have an administration at the federal level that's resistant to that direction of travel, but it can't simply reverse it. The economics have essentially taken over. New forms of

For example, generation are cheaper than old technologies. And that's why you saw last year that the majority of new generation was solar. In this country, you're seeing the development of the offshore wind industry. Here, you're seeing the development of geothermal, new generation electricity.

of nuclear power, support for small modular nuclear reactors as a result of a loan that the Loan Program Office of the Department of Energy made. The Palisades nuclear reactor in Michigan is coming back online to supply clean power. And the United States is going to keep reducing its emissions, whether at the same pace, at the same scale, is I think the question on people's minds. But

I think I was credible and able to reassure people that the United States would continue to decarbonize, even in the face of an administration whose favorite slogan is drill, baby, drill.

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So, John, in much of this conversation so far, I have portrayed the Biden administration as progressive on clean energy, in part because we are looking ahead to a different administration. But there are many contradictions here. One, of course, is that the United States has, you know, not just over the last four years, but over time, become one of the world's biggest producers of oil and gas.

But then there's another big contradiction, I think, that has been furthered by your administration, and that is this. China has the world's biggest market for electric vehicles. And unlike in the United States, there is also massive demand for these cars, partly because they're much cheaper than the options that are available here.

And partly because, you know, they're better at smaller sort of car levels. Here's the question. If the Biden administration cares so much about unleashing market forces, which we've been talking about, to accelerate green technology, why put tariffs on Chinese EVs, which your administration has done? Why make it so much harder for them to truly go global and transform the market?

Well, look, I think everybody is feeling a bit of pressure here, but the basic reality is...

that we have an economic security interest in ensuring that our industrial base remains strong, vibrant. And that's why I think the president's industrial strategy has been to bring production back home and the full supply chain of industrial production in these new clean technologies back to the United States to try to work with partners in doing that, but to...

deal with the fact that over the past decade or so, China has used, the PRC has used non-market practices to essentially corner the market. They've done it by requiring technology transfer. They've done it by taking IP from individual companies. They've done it by subsidies on a size and scale that really are unmatched around the world.

They've done it by selling below market in order to undermine competition. And therefore, they have a very strong hold on the production and supply of critical minerals, of batteries, of upstream solar. What we've seen happen as a result of competition

The president's focus on ensuring that we maintain our own industrial capacity is, again, a renaissance of manufacturing here. $130 billion worth of investment in critical minerals, batteries, EV production in the United States.

We've seen that not just from companies that are headquarters in the United States, but Korean manufacturers coming to the U.S., the Japanese manufacturers who were in the U.S. manufacturing cars, doubling down on building out electric vehicle supply chains here. That's producing jobs. That's producing greater security. Still, John, if I may, I get all of that, but

but a lot of the criticisms you leveled at China subsidies, that was part of the Biden administration's plan as well through the IRA. And then a lot of these jobs and local creation, that is now in jeopardy because the Biden administration is on its way out. And so the criticism that many climate activists put forward

is if the climate crisis is so urgent and so big and so global, why not just let China apply its scale and power to solving the issue? Well, I think we cannot afford a second China shock. If you talk to people in Europe, if you talk to people in India, if you talk to people in Brazil, I think they're all feeling the same pressure. We need to produce for our own workers. We need to give a future in which people can participate.

participate in this economy. We can't just seed industrial production to China across this whole range of technologies. And if we intend to maintain public support for the policy of moving towards clean, then workers are going to need to be, in fact, this needs to be a worker-led and worker-driven transition to a clean economy.

John, the last time I saw you, you had just returned from China. And one of the big debates in US-China competition more broadly has been how to isolate sort of the energy track as an area for mutual cooperation. Given your focus in this area, what is your sense of how insulated that area

That aspect of the partnership and competition is from other tensions that exist and may accelerate under a Trump administration. Yeah, look, there's no question that the relationship overall has much more tension in it, even than when I had somewhat of a similar role in the Obama administration. And particularly in these technology trade matters, there's a significant amount of tension.

Nevertheless, I think the president realized and in his conversations with President Xi has emphasized that we need to keep an open dialogue with respect to climate change. We need to understand what both countries are trying to do, encourage more ambition on both sides. Secretary Kerry spent a lot of time and effort and energy engaging with China to

try to get positive outcomes, both in the bilateral track and in the multilateral track. Uh, I've done the same thing, uh, hosted my counterpart Lu Xiumin, uh, in Washington in the spring. I was in Beijing in the fall. Uh,

We co-hosted, along with Azerbaijan, a summit on non-CO2 gases, which account for half of global warming. Methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs in Baku this year and saw a number of additional new ambitious announcements come forward as a result. At a technical level, I think, particularly in this non-CO2 space, we have...

created a channel of communication that I think is helpful. We also push China to be more ambitious. They're now the largest emitter by far in the world. 30% of emissions are coming from China. They are in the process probably of peaking their emissions. We think they may have already peaked

But they need to show a downturn in emissions like the rest of the industrialized world has done. They've picked a target of trying to be net zero across all greenhouse gases, which took some U.S. diplomacy to get them to agree that they would cover all greenhouse gases. That was an outcome of

on meetings that Secretary Kerry had with Xi Jinping at Sunnylands last year. But still, we think that in order to be on track to that goal, they have to be showing real emissions reductions on the order of 30% by 2035.

So we talked a little bit about the nationally determined commitments. They're due to up their nationally determined commitment as well. They need to be ambitious. I think the rest of the world is looking to them for that. But I think that continuing that dialogue meant that we were able to successfully land a new finance commitment in Baku. And those kinds of conversations need to keep going. I

left Baku to go to Latin America. I sat in the meeting that President Biden and President Xi had in Lima on the side of the APEC meeting there and before the president visited, first president in history to visit the Amazon and make new commitments and contributions to preserving the Amazon. But in that meeting with

President Xi and President Biden, they once again both suggested that this is a place where both countries need to stay on track and at least have an open dialogue. And that's in the interest of our own citizens. It's also in the interest of the world.

And the question is, of course, you know, how much of that dialogue can continue next year and beyond. John, I'm going to switch gears a little bit here. You know, if you put on some of your previous hats, I mean, of course, you were White House chief of staff. You've run transitions. You're a bit of a transition expert in this country. And, you know,

If you were to look at how the Trump transition team is doing so far, how would you rate what they're doing?

I think one of the things that they've done is they've gone kind of slow in terms of getting into the agencies. Maybe they think they were here only four years ago, so they know what's going on inside the agencies. But they were rather slow to sign the agreements that gave them access to the information that is necessary to really run a professional transition. The president was quick on that.

out of the gate in naming senior officials in his administration, but many of them are controversial in their own right. They've sort of dispensed with vetting the people that they're naming. So that's proven to be something of a problem for them. But I think the most, the fundamental task of a transition is to essentially make

take the promises that the president has made to the American people and focus them into a strategy that can hit the ground running on January 20th. When he takes the oath of office, what are the priorities?

Are you serious about being able to execute them? Have you digested what policies that were put forward in the campaign? And can you bring them to bear and bring that strategy to bear both at a legislative level and as well as in the essentially the takeover of the agencies and the management of the agencies? Can you execute that? This is...

You know, if you did a Harvard Business School study and you have...

the doge running around and you have a relatively unclear pathway for a number of the cabinet positions going forward. It's at least unconventional whether it'll be successful or not. I think time will tell. I think if you look back at 2016, under Governor Christie's leadership, the Trump team had put together a more traditional strategy

professionalized, normalized transition. And then I think on day two, he fired Christie and put Mike Pence in charge. So maybe by those standards, this is a well-oiled machine. But I think that they're finally getting their own transition teams into the federal agencies, beginning to interact with the leadership that's there, ask questions, get the information.

I think the president's instructed all of us to try to be cooperative where we can and provide the information that they're requesting. So we're trying to do that as best we can. But they were slow in getting going. You're a busy man, and I know we're out of time. But just quick last question. What's next for you, John? I'm committed to getting a suntan.

luck with that and happy holidays. I've taught for 25 years, I guess, at Georgetown Law School. So I'll teach a class at Georgetown Law School. But my wife and I are going to spend some time in the beach in California. Enjoy that. Well deserved. Get a tan. John Podesta, thanks for joining us. Thanks. And that was John Podesta, President Biden's chief climate diplomat.

Lots more ahead. On Monday, we're going to drop a bonus episode, and that is an interview with Samantha Power, the Administrator of USAID. We will talk about the White House's aid and development agenda and the legacy of both Biden's foreign policy and her own time in government. Follow us on foreignpolicy.com slash live. That is where you can actually catch these sessions live and on video, and you can also join in on the fun by asking questions.

FP Live, the podcast, is produced by Rosie Julin, and the executive producer of FP Live is Dana Schoen. I'm Ravi Agrawal. I'll see you next time. Americans are more divided than ever. What can be done to start repairing trust between people of differing opinions?

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