Energy Security and Climate Initiative

[On economic diversification in Saudi Arabia] There’s going to need to be a lot of wisdom on how that money is funneled back into the economy.

Those outside China have more to gain by helping China improve its clean energy game than they do by thwarting it. Despite their trade-war chest-thumping, despite their framing of the push for cleaner energy as a nationalistic zero-sum game, Bei­jing, Brussels and Washington – or more specifically, Chinese and Western capitalists – need each other so each can do what they most want in the global clean en­ergy race: maximize the money they make.

[On Bernie Sanders' climate plan] Competition in the power industry can be good, but he seems opposed to anyone making a profit there and is focused on creating more federal entities to transform the power sector.

[On the security risks of climate change] The classic definition [of state security] has been around conflict—threats to human life from armed aggression—which includes intrastate components such as dissident groups and civil war, and then, of course, when states go to war with each other.... [But climate change may induce conflict] to happen in places that are already living on the edge.

[On President Trump's July 8, 2019 comments pitting environmental protection against economic growth] I just find this completely untrue. Environmental improvement and economic growth has gone hand in hand for decades.