Energy Security and Climate Initiative

For solar, a trade war is going to play out differently than other industries. Unlike in other industries where you would see a lot of trade move around, I think [solar] companies will suck it up and pay the tariffs. Gross explains that China’s growth is driven by the country’s own solar manufacturing, climbing energy needs, ambitious plans addressing climate change, and pollution problems. China has a growing power demand to serve. China also has horrendous local air pollution problems. I don’t want to belittle their climate commitment, but it’s easier for them to build up their renewable energy industry when they are also helping with a more tangible problem.

[On tariffs on Chinese steel] Another paragraph in the essay the Trump administration is writing against international institutions.

Paris has a role to play in managing the climate problem, but what is really going to drive big reductions in emissions is change in technology and change in the political support for the policies needed to deploy those technologies. At the end of the day, [leaving Paris] doesn’t change the facts on the ground that many states are going ahead and doing something in this area...that the electric power industry is grappling with the need for more renewables and more gas, and lower emissions, and those are the facts that actually matter.