Energy Security and Climate Initiative
How will the election impact US engagement on climate change?
Webinar: Confronting climate change in the global COVID-19 recovery
Climate threats and climate justice: Action and adaptation for sustainable development
Todd Stern
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Energy Security and Climate Initiative
David G. Victor
Nonresident Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Energy Security and Climate Initiative
[On managing local and state opposition to the Biden Administration's goal of 100% carbon-free electricity nationwide by 2035] Given that we are going to have to build a lot of renewable generation and transmission, we need to think about how to get the public onboard — these concerns aren’t going to go away on their own.
[On the bump in crude prices] Is demand coming back for sure? Are the lockdowns lifting for good? With all these new [coronavirus] variants, who knows how long we are going to be in it? ... The deep freeze in Texas took some oil off the market, and that lost production propped up Brent prices at least in the short term ... Clearly they all want to bring back output, but the biggest question is how much of the coronavirus is behind us and that's hard to say. We're not out of it yet.
There’s a highly uneven response to the climate challenge from the oil and gas industry. The European companies are out in front, and the American ones—Exxon in particular—are lagging far behind.
[On setting ambitious Paris Agreement goals as an example for other countries] You never have impact unless you're walking the walk, not just talking the talk. The U.S. is going to have to produce a really ramped up NDC [nationally determined contribution] target for 2030.
[On GM's new 100% electric car announcement] [It is] a big deal in the sense that you have now a single set of planning targets that apply to the entire company, and it’s timed very carefully to resonate with the important political debates that are happening right now.
On January 27, 2021, David G. Victor moderated the Accelerating Clean Energy Transitions session at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda 2021.