Energy Security and Climate Initiative
[On the urgency of climate science versus the political reaction] These two ships are sailing in opposite directions. In one direction, the science is showing that the problem is more - even more severe than we originally thought. In the other direction, we're learning that the political challenges in making big reductions are more challenging than people had imagined.
[On climate change] There's been a lot of progress kind of in bits and pieces here and there, but it's not progress that adds up to the 50, 60, 80 percent reduction in global emissions that you need to stop global warming.
[On COP24, and the Paris Agreement climate negotiations] Rulebooks are important, but it is easy to over-state their relevance because the Paris process is, by design, decentralised – it relies on countries and regions to take the lead with pledges of action and commitments to take the climate problem seriously.
[On the Paris Agreement on climate change and COP24] My lodestar is: what is the way in which we stay faithful to the Paris agreement? Not what does the US want or not, because I can’t speak for the US, and it won’t come as a surprise to you that people aren’t all that interested about what the US likes or doesn’t right now.
[On the latest climate science, in lead-up to COP 24 U.N. climate negotiations] It's even worse than we thought. I think the stakes are quite high. If you end up having a failure in this meeting, an inability to get a rule book done, I think you'd have that much more sense among people that this is really going in a very, very bad direction.
[On the role of the United States in the COP24 climate negotiations] It's not a very appealing argument to ask other countries to push for a certain outcome in Katowice in order to keep the door open for a future president because the US has walked away… in a very disruptive and aggravating manner in the eyes of virtually any other country you can think of.
[On COP 24 and the U.N. climate process] A ranked list of countries with the highest gross domestic product per capita today will show a significant number of developing countries ranking higher than some developed countries. The idea of apportioning climate responsibilities on the basis of an immutable division of countries from 1992 makes no sense.
[On COP 24 U.N. climate negotiations, amid current trends in geopolitics] It will be interesting to see how this local distaste for multilateralism plays against a growing understanding of the urgency of the problem.
[On COP 24 and the Paris Agreement on climate "Rulebook"] That’s essentially needed to turn Paris from an accord on paper into a working, operational and effective regime.
[On COP 24 climate negotiations and current challenges to multilateralism] The global political environment is really challenging right now, with nationalism taking hold in many countries.