Climate Change

[On the Paris Agreement and climate action] It is going to sour for sure, if China doesn’t move in the right direction, quickly enough. We can’t possibly do what we need to do, unless China is doing quite a bit.

[On climate change] We are sort of entering a new world now . . . It is not just a sense of urgency, it is the math. Do the math, and you will see whether we are doing enough. The Paris agreement is going to rise and fall, on the level of political will in constituent countries. That has always been true. The fault is that there is a lack of political will in virtually every country, compared to what there needs to be.

[On the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius] By setting our goals with a single set of measures, we were making the climate problem more abstract. It was hard to see the progress people were making with that indicator.

[On climate change] You want to understand not just the impact, but also what are the levers you can pull in order to reduce that impact.

[On U.S. coal demand] A recovery in domestic coal demand is not likely. Inexpensive natural gas and renewable power are not going away. New coal-fired generation capacity is much more expensive to build and more difficult to site and permit than natural gas or renewable facilities. Uncertainty about the future of climate and environmental regulation adds to the challenge, along with the potential that older coal plants will become obsolete.