Climate Change

[On the potential for future U.S. re-entry into the Paris Agreement on climate] The accord is really designed to bring people in and keep them. They need very little notice at all to let us back in.

[On the up-tick in U.S. subnational climate action among cities and states, following President Trump's intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement] That was already going on, but the Trump administration really put that on steroids.

[On the challenges toward U.S. sub-national action on climate change] We're still in the talking phase, in most cases. Symbolically, it is really, really popular to be announcing things about climate change. But the real work of solving the problem is very detailed infrastructure kinds of activity, and that's much, much harder.

[On climate diplomacy] The US is enormously important to the nature and energy behind climate diplomacy all over the world.

[On the U.S. role in climate negotiations following formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement] I don’t think that the Trump administration pulled out of Paris is going to try to play in that arena, or have any credibility if they do. But I would not rule out them coming out on a non-Paris issue.

[On reaching net zero emissions by 2050, to address climate change] Can we do it from an innovation standpoint? Yes. Can we do it from a policy standpoint? Yes. Can we afford it? Yes. Do we have the political will? No. And that’s the problem.

[On climate action] The paradigm here is a race against time. Directional improvement is not good enough.

[On the Trump administration's intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change] I don't think there's a lot of players out there who are in the 'Gee, maybe he's not so bad; maybe it won't happen' camp. But I suppose it puts one more nail in this thing.