Climate Change

[On sectoral climate action and the costs of inaction] It’s got to be a set of policies and actions that bring about fundamental change in power, transport, industry, buildings. The economic impact of this kind of move would be enormously positive. People think, “Oh, it’s going to cost so much. Oh, it’s going to be so hard.” On any kind of net basis, we will greatly improve the economy if we act aggressively. It’s absolutely going to cost money, but it’s going to cost less money than not acting.

[On U.S. public perceptions on climate change between 2015 and 2020] I don’t think the United States is so different—the administration is certainly different, because it’s a complete about-face. But there is still very broad support [for climate action] in the United States. There’s a belief in climate change, a belief in the need for action, and support for the Paris agreement. This is not so much a matter of the broad United States as it is a matter of the Trump administration.

[On U.S. climate policy] We had at the end of the Obama administration the first-ever federal wide regulatory regime on climate. Most of that, the Trump administration has actively rolled back.

The really big effect of what Trump has done is to send a message to the rest of the world that the United States is not credible on climate change. The rest of the world is not going to know if we’re serious because we keep swinging back and forth. Over the past 50 years, the effectiveness in creating international deals came from U.S. leadership. And now nobody knows if we’re going to do that anymore.