351: Trump Moves to Dismantle US Climate Law - Now Comes the Legal Test
This week we consider the politics, the economics and the climate reality of Trump’s repeal of the ‘endangerment finding’ and ask, is this a structural turning point for US climate leadership?
About this episode
The Trump administration last week announced the repeal of the ‘endangerment finding’ - the 2009 determination that climate change threatens public health and welfare. It may sound arcane, but this piece of legislation empowered the US federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This decision weakens the regulatory backbone of American climate policy, and may reshape the country’s emissions trajectory for years to come.
So what happens next?
This week, Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson consider the politics, the economics and the climate reality of this move. And Tom calls friend of the show Manish Bapna, President and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose organisation is preparing to challenge the rollback in court. Speaking to us just as the case was filed, Manish explains why the endangerment finding has long been the legal bedrock of federal climate action, and how the case could climb all the way to the Supreme Court.
Until then, uncertainty reins: is this a temporary political detour - or a structural turning point for US climate leadership? And if federal authority falters, will states, businesses and markets keep the transition moving anyway?
Learn More:
🌿 Learn how the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding established the legal basis for regulating greenhouse gases
📊 Understand the ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ - and why putting a price on climate damage matters
⚖️ Read the statement from NRDC and its partners outlining their legal challenge to the rollback
🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe
Join the conversation:
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Or get in touch with us via this form.
Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
This is a Persephonica production for Global Optimism and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
Full Transcript
Transcript generated by AI. While we aim for accuracy, errors may still occur. Please refer to the episode’s audio for the definitive version
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Manish, good to talk to you.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Great to be with you.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: How's your week going? It's been quite a lot going on over there, I think.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): We all hoped after the winter holidays, that 26 would be a little bit more of a sane year compared to 25.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: How's that going?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Started with the United States invading Venezuela for oil and gas.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Don't forget Greenland, that was in there.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Greenland, ice agents across cities in this country, and now we have the federal government saying that the science and the law to tackle climate change no longer exists. So it has been an eventful two months.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Let's get into it. Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett-Carnac.
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Christiana Figueres: I'm Christiana Figueres.
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Paul Dickinson: And I'm Paul Dickinson.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: This week, we're talking about the rollback of the endangerment finding that Donald Trump's administration completed last week. And we speak to Manish Bapna, CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the man who is going to be taking the US administration to court to prevent them from taking this crazy step. Thanks for being here. OK, so if you are listening to this podcast on the day it comes out, the 19th of February, then this news is a week old. So we have a chance to dig in deep to it. But probably the people who are listening to this podcast are already aware that last week Donald Trump rolled back what's called the endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act, which is the ruling from Obama's time in the White House that the federal government has the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, in fact has the responsibility to regulate them in order to keep Americans and keep the world safe. The fact that this is happening now is interesting. The economics has already shifted. Donald Trump has been responsible for more closures of coal-fired power plants than any other president before him. And so we wanted to dig into, is this a big story? What's this going to mean for the US emissions trajectory? What's going to change? And that's why we're speaking to Manish Bapna. So Christiana, any responses from you before we kick off? Is this a what the hell moment?
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Christiana Figueres: It is. And you know what, Tom? I had a very unfortunate setup for this because you punted over to me an interview with the BBC. And I said, yes, OK, OK, I can do it. But what I didn't know is that before they wanted to know my reaction, the BBC actually made me listen live to Trump's speech about repealing the endangerment finding. And there I was, right, on camera listening to this. And it was just, I just felt, he started, you know what, he started by saying, it is an honor. And then I couldn't hear anything else after that, because I thought he mistook an N for a double R. It's not an honor, it's a horror. And I just, I was just at loss for words after that. Anyway, thank you for setting me up like that, OK?
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: It is a horror.
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Paul Dickinson: It's a terrible thing. And what the BBC should have warned you. I mean, do you know, it's a serious point here, right? This is the President of the United States saying, one of the greatest scams in history and the endangerment finding had no basis in fact. Now, you know, we've spent, I don't know, between all of us nearly 100 years working on climate change. Of course it's based in fact. It's like facts coming out of your bloody ears. There's facts stacked up for decades and decades that are just kind of completely agreed by everyone. This is open lying without impunity from the highest office of government. It's a new kind of politics. Never come across it before in my life. I just wanted to share that.
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Christiana Figueres: Thank you.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Open lying without impunity. Okay, that's a good first hot take from Paul. I like that. Well, obviously this is a very consequential moment, but there's lots of questions that remain that we're going to try and dig into with Manish in just a minute. I mean, as we now know, clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. So does it really make a difference if we now change the regulations that underpin this? There's also an interesting question mark. Those of us who have long enough memories will remember that before this endangerment finding was put in place, regulation on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States was often based at the state level. And it was this complicated patchwork of different regulations that was very difficult to actually adhere to. And finally, this is going to be challenged in the courts. Are we actually going to see this happen? Or can we rely on leaders like Manish to actually help to drive this back? So those are the things we're going to get into. And I wonder, as this is a complicated topic, maybe we should go first to the interview, and then the three of us will come back after the break for some more analysis. Manish Bapna, welcome back to Outrage and Optimism. Thrilled to talk to you again. Really appreciate you taking some time to chat to us. It's a shame it's not under happier circumstances, but we will take from this what we can, and really appreciate your leadership, as the listeners will, when we get into this. So we are here to talk about the rollback of the endangerment finding under the EPA that happened last week. But we are going to go a little bit deeper into the story and what it means. But first of all, can you just tell us how did this unfold? What was the experience of living through this? I'm sure you knew this was coming. Have you expected this for a while? What's the inside story of what happened here? Just help us understand how you experienced it.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): So we had been expecting the repeal of the endangerment finding for quite some time. It's important to remember that this was on the table during the first Trump administration. And there was a big debate about whether or not they would go this far. And there were voices within the first administration that said there isn't that much support for repealing the underlying scientific basis that allows the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. And so this was a debate during the first administration. We anticipated that this was going to happen during the second administration, principally because there were both a set of quite strong ideologues within the second administration that wanted to undercut any future administration's ability to tackle climate. They saw climate, they see climate, climate deniers that see this as a path that should not be taken. And so those ideological voices outweighed the more establishment voices in the Republican Party around what to do. But in addition to that, I think what we saw was the deal that was done with the oil and gas industry during the campaign. You remember the dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Give me a billion dollars and I will do what you want. Right.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Well, this administration is clearly privileging the needs of the oil and gas and fossil fuel industry executives and lobbyists at the expense of the American people. And that is what led to this much more frontal attack on climate change during the second administration.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So I want to get into that and also to talk about the impact of fossil fuel companies in driving this back. But just help us for listeners who don't sort of live and breathe administrative law. You talked about this already like science underpinning regulation, but the endangerment finding, what does that actually do? Take it away from the Clean Air Act. Does that mean that the US has lost its ability to deal at a federal level with climate change at all?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): So it's important to remember that the United States federal government has two broad levers to tackle climate. One is what it can do through Congress, through the legislative process. And the second is what they can do administratively. And what we're talking about right now is the latter, the second half of that equation, what they could do administratively. And it has to do with the Clean Air Act, which was, you know, a 1970 law that gave statutory language to the Environmental Protection Agency on how to protect people from dirty air. What the endangerment finding was was a determination in 2009 under the Obama years that climate change endangered public health and welfare. And so it connected the dots between climate change and public health and welfare, which then enabled the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal government, not only enabled, but required the federal government to then tackle climate change as a pollutant. So by putting forward a finding that that decision was a mistake, by repealing the endangerment finding, not only does it undercut the scientific argument, but that also has formed the basis for federal rules and standards to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. So what you see with the repeal of the endangerment finding is also at the same time a repeal of the greenhouse gas standards for cars and trucks, which as you know in the States are the number one source of greenhouse gas pollution. But if the endangerment finding is successful in being repealed, then it would over time undercut the ability to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants or methane from oil and gas operations and so forth. So it is the foundational element that federal standards on greenhouse gas emissions rely upon.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So you said something very tantalizing there, which is if this happens, and that gets to the role that you are going to play. So we'll come to that in a minute. But just to summarize what you just said, because I remember before this happened in 2013, there was always this back and forth about when will Congress pass a climate bill, and when will the law be in place? And in a way, this endangerment finding replaced the necessity of passing additional legislation, because it meant that previous legislation in the form of the Clean Air Act could then be used in that way. But we're now back to a pre-2013 moment where in order to move forward, we would need to pass a bill. So this is a huge deal. This is going to materially affect the United States' emissions trajectory in your analysis.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Absolutely, because I mean, what you've seen in the past year with this Trump administration is a number of things. You've seen the evisceration of the Inflation Reduction Act, the big US climate law that provided incentives, think of the carrots, to encourage investments in clean energy. Now you're seeing the evisceration of the federal rules and standards, a bit more the regulatory side, the sticks, to try to encourage the shift to clean. And on top of that, what you're seeing with this administration is the weaponization of the permitting system. So even projects that aren't relying on the incentives, clean energy projects, solar, wind, storage, but particularly wind and solar, offshore wind in particular, has been at the crosshairs of this administration. They are, in essence, making it almost impossible to actually build these projects. So what you're seeing at the moment is a multi-pronged attack on clean energy and climate change from this administration. This is a big piece of it, but it needs to be seen within this broader context of what this administration aims to do.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And it's so fascinating, because you've used the word ideology a few times. We're at a point now where renewables are the cheapest form of new power. The US is building enormous amounts of data centers. We now have a demand for more power in a way that we haven't had. And yet we have an administration that is so ideological that it's taking the country in a different direction. It's sort of through the looking glass kind of moment, really, isn't it?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): It is. You know, this administration is trying to make three arguments around why they want to repeal the endangerment fighting, why they want to eliminate these standards, why they want to eliminate the incentives, why they want to go back to coal, oil, and gas. They're making a scientific argument, they're making a legal argument, and they're making an economic argument. The scientific argument, some of you will remember the Department of Energy a few months ago released this climate skeptic report challenging the climate science, which was routinely panned by scientists, you know, within the United States, all around the world. The National Academies came out with a very strong rebuttal of this. They were five people handpicked by the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, to write a report that no one is standing behind. But there was a scientific argument that they made, well, climate change isn't really happening, or if it is, it isn't really affecting people. The legal argument that they're making, which is what this repeal of the Endangerment Fighting particularly rests on, is that the Clean Air Act doesn't give explicit authority to the administration to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. That this was a false reading of statutory law. What's important to note is that the Supreme Court has already opined on this matter three times in the past 20 years, 15 years, and has said that the EPA does have that authority. It's more a question of how it exercises that authority, not whether it has that authority. The third argument, just very quickly, that this administration, because it's quite, it's quite shocking, is an economic argument. And what they are doing is, in essence, cooking the books. They are looking only at the cost to industry, and they have zeroed out the benefits to people or to planet. They're making the argument that the social cost of carbon should be zero. But even on top of that, that the value of human life, because it's difficult to quantify, Should be set as zero. It should be zero. So now they're saying in this argument, there's 1.3 million in costs to the auto industry by having Biden's car and truck rules. And therefore, if we eliminate the rules, there'll be 1.3 trillion in savings. When they have basically said, we don't know how to quantify the benefits, so there's zero. This is the economic argument.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So that's fascinating. And thank you for setting out those three different pieces of those three different arguments. I mean, I think the scientific one, we can sort of just, to be honest, put to one side, right? Because it's clearly nonsense. It's been debunked already. So, you know, we don't even need to do that. The honor of talking about it. The third one, the economic one, is interesting, because that is a kind of recasting of a clear benefit that we have seen that is based on the science. I really mainly want to talk to you about the middle one, which is the legal one, but just before we leave the economic argument, I have heard various different commentators look at this and say, this is also slightly a declaration of defeat by the US to China in the manufacturing race to create the energy technologies of tomorrow. Because China's position is now so dominant that the US has essentially concluded that they can't catch up, and therefore continuing down a road of decarbonization is essentially increasing reliance on Chinese technology. Do you buy that argument?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): I buy the argument that by repealing the incentives and the standards, it's going to be incredibly more difficult for the United States to come down the learning curve on the cost of these technologies to be globally competitive. And that will be perhaps more visibly, acutely seen in the auto sector than anywhere else. So, I do think that there is some truth to that. But whether or not it is a recognition, I think it is a recognition that this industry and some of the states and communities that have supported the Trump, you know, in his campaign, his administration, care deeply about how you think about a thoughtful transition. But I really think this is much more about ideologues in his administration that just want to hold on to energy sources that this administration has become dominant in and double down on that. And the real risk in all of that is that at a time when we know in the medium term, the world will be electric, it will be clean. I think the United States is, it's an own goal. It's really shooting itself in the foot in being able to really compete effectively in those technologies. But that is a medium term argument in the short term. I think this plays politically to this administration space.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. Okay. Thank you for answering that. Now let's talk about the legal side because you said something very interesting. You said that you will sue and you expect to win. So talk us through that. What is the legal case by which you're going to challenge this attempt to repeal the endangerment finding?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): The argument that we believe this administration is going to make is that the Clean Air Act provides statutory language around local and regional pollution. That climate change is a global problem and therefore is not covered adequately by the statutory language of the Clean Air Act. We feel that the Supreme Court has already decided, opined on this issue in multiple decisions in the past, has not challenged whether or not the federal government has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but has shaped questions around how they regulate greenhouse gas emissions. So you think back about the Clean Power Plan during, you know, the Obama years and a belief that that was pushing change too quickly in a way that it would have significant economic consequences and was not explicitly authorized by Congress. So that is where there's been opinions, decisions by the Supreme Court to shape how it does it, but the Supreme Court has never challenged whether or not. Now the argument that I imagine this administration is making is that the composition of the Supreme Court has changed since 2007, from the original Massachusetts case for CPA, and therefore this set of judges may argue differently. Now although we have seen this Supreme Court up and precedent in terms of previous Supreme Court decisions, we have not really seen the Supreme Court challenge decisions that are based on statutory language. And so I think that is why we feel quite a bit more confident about the case before the Supreme Court once we file our suit than otherwise.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So that's interesting. So the fact that they have not done that would lead us to think that they may not want to do that in this case. And I'm sure this is part of your calculation for this Supreme Court that is now so heavily stacked with Trump-appointed judges, to make a decision that will at least be interpreted politically as a curb on Donald Trump's authority would be quite a statement. So when you apply both your legal lens and your political lens to this situation, does that change your calculation of what you expect to happen?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): So I think there's also a thought on timing in that I think that it will take some time for the court to percolate up to the Supreme Court. And I do think what we're seeing in the United States at this point is that perhaps the time of Trump's maximalist power on the government or on the country may have peaked. And we're starting to see some pushback. And then we have, you saw what happened during the elections in 2025 in New Jersey or in Virginia or even in Georgia. Some downstate public utility commission elections that went for the first time to Democrats seeking statewide office. So I think there is a argument that over time we're going to see a little bit more resistance, a little bit more stiff spine on pushing back on some of the extreme interpretations that this administration is taking. So we will see.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I love that analysis. And thank you for sharing that with us. That is really encouraging to hear. And I suppose that also feeds into a question of how long you think this will take. I mean, you have so much more experience in this. When would you assess this might actually come before the Supreme Court if it does? There's so many steps when you're in that.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): I think it's highly likely to come before the Supreme Court. But I think there are a number of steps, you know, a number of different scenarios of how that could play out. But I do think something, you know, it could take a couple of years, I see, before this Supreme Court. So this isn't something that's going to happen tomorrow or in the next few months. This will take a little bit of time. But within that, there's quite a bit of quite a bit of range.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And what happens to the existing regulations during that time period?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): You know, I mean, the existing regulations, depending on what the legal strategy is for those that choose to challenge it, will likely be on ice, I imagine, for the time being. This administration, to be honest, this administration has put virtually any climate regulation or environmental regulation more broadly on ice. They issued a call that if any cold plant, chemical plant, industrial facility has trouble meeting a federal standard, send an email and ask for a waiver or an exemption or more time to comply. And that is what is happening. That is actually what is happening in this country, is if you feel it is difficult to comply with the standard, you could send an email and it often, particularly if it's related to climate pollution, the waiver will be granted and you could get more time. So the enforcement of existing standards right now is not going to be driving action or ambition on a climate in the near term.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So how does a business interpret that? Because they don't know which regulations they're actually subject to. So how are businesses responding to that situation? It must be a nightmare.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Well, I think this is particularly true around what are the big challenges around the endangerment finding and why even the oil and gas industry through their trade associations did not strongly advocate for its repeal. Is that it actually, if you repeal the endangerment finding, it could open up space for state law regulation and litigation. And so there was a federal preemption argument that could be made when the federal government had authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. If you actually undercut that, you could end up in a patchwork situation.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Which is very expensive.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Where you have less clarity, less predictability. And that actually, as we know, business, one thing business does not like, it is uncertainty or the pendulum swinging back and forth. So even with the cars and trucks' standards being repealed, I don't think the auto industry is assuming they are gone and they will never come back. It's a question about when they come back, in what form, what will states do. So there is still very much an opportunity to actually think a little bit about, can we get a more predictable set of standards that provide greater certainty to businesses who have to make these long-term investments? And so I don't think by any means the book closes with the endangerment finding repeal chapter. It is a chapter, there are going to be many more chapters written, and that's part of the hard work we need to do during this coming year.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: That is a great message to nearly end on. I would like to just finally ask you, there's a lot of despondency at the moment in the US and from your friends around the world who are looking at the US and missing our sort of dependable global partner and all the great things we used to do together. What would you say about this moment? Because you see a process that is hidden to many people. How would you speak to people who are feeling that decades of progress are being unwound?
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): I mean, I think it is really important to look beyond the headlines, to look at actually what is happening on the ground. And I think to some extent, the headlines talk understandably and correctly about the evisceration of federal climate policy. But take a look at what states are doing. Take a look at where businesses are investing. And I think you get a more complex picture and a slightly more positive picture, because we know that the economics of clean have changed profoundly in the last 10 years. And so there is no escaping the economic appeal of clean. And the other thing kind of to remember is that while we, you know, all of this was happening, it is starting to cut through to the public. I mean, juxtaposing repeal of the endangerment finding with this Super Bowl halftime show, when bad buddy is actually has a part of his performance, the impacts of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
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Paul Dickinson: On grid stability.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): On grid stability is a really important just image about what is happening today, here and now. And I think that the reality of unnatural disasters and how they play to people and their sense of affordability and security and safety matter. And I think what we're seeing, the argument I would make is, yes, the headlines all around the world on what this administration is doing is devastating. And those are true. And yet the country is a lot bigger than what happens in Washington. Look at what's happening on the ground. The momentum is starting to change. It really is. And I think we're feeling a little bit more bullish about what's going to happen in the coming year. And I think the reason we can do so is that we know that clean is in our economic self-interest. And that isn't lost on industries, on communities, on states. And the pendulum will swing them in Washington.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Manish, we are grateful to you. We're grateful for you. We're grateful for the great work you do at NRDC. Thank you so much for joining us and for that great message and all power to your incredible work. Thanks.
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Manish Bapna (guest, CEO of NRDC): Thank you very much, Tom. Good to be with you.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Okay, so I mean, I have to say, I really enjoyed that conversation with Manish. He's always such a great guest on the podcast. Obviously, we've had him before. And to have him set out that there is no scientific basis for this, there is no economic basis for this. And you know what? There's also no legal basis for this either. Kind of throws into shark stark relief, the ideological push that is being made by certain extreme elements to make this happen. When it wasn't even wanted by the oil and gas companies. So I'd love to just...
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Christiana Figueres: Yeah, exactly.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I'd love to just...
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Paul Dickinson: Well, you say that. And because they're clear enough to cover their tracks. But, you know, I mean, Manish suggested that the oil and gas industry actually was sort of behind this and potentially their billion-dollar bribe that Trump requested before the election, you know, did that deal happen? So just whichever way.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: That's true. No, that's 100%. But he also pointed out that this will not be the end of regulation. Even if this goes through, we will see regulation at the state level. And that's a very complicated and costly reality for many companies. And they're not going to be able to...
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Christiana Figueres: Yeah, because it's a patchwork.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: It's a patchwork.
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Paul Dickinson: That's often where federal law comes from, you know, is there's a lot that has a patchwork and then federal law comes to unify and simplify. So it's a kind of reversing history here.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And then we go back to patchwork again in this scenario. So that's why it wasn't really being pushed for by many parts of the private sector, despite the corruption you did very rightly just point out there, Paul. So let's kind of get into it. I'd love to just sort of think about this is happening at a moment when costs for clean energy are coming down. We've got some integration challenges. But does this really matter that the US is pulling back on this at this point? Manish seemed to think this was a huge deal and it will affect greenhouse gas emissions in the US. Do either of you have a different view?
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Christiana Figueres: Well, I just wanted to say one thing before I get into that, if I may, Tom. Because I think some listeners may be asking, well, he's been rolling back a whole bunch of climate action and climate regulations and climate bills such as the IRA, et cetera, et cetera. So why is this a bigger deal? I think in order to understand it, as you pointed out, this is the basis for many other regulations. So you could think in a little pictorial way that up until now, what the administration has been doing is pruning the bush of climate action and climate regulation. But the endangerment finding is actually the roots of that bush. And that by pulling out the roots, it makes it practically impossible to have any at the federal level, any climate action or any climate regulation that needs the roots in order to exist. So that just to understand why is this in a different category than the other rollbacks that they have been enacting since they started. Now to your question, is this going to make a huge difference? Well, of course, crystal ball remains to be seen. What it does do is it removes the possibility of any incentives and any pro-climate, pro-decarbonization regulation. So by definition, of course, that will have an effect. But curiously enough, let me just go back to the fact that it is called endangerment finding. Because the reason why it's called endangerment is because fossil fuel burning endangers the health of citizens, in this case, the health of US citizens, and endangers the economic competitiveness of the US industry against other industries of other countries that will continue to decarbonize quite happily. Especially now that the United States is out. The big question remains, are the wins that we will have in other countries, will they actually accelerate to neutralize what we have lost in the United States in the short term, in the next three years, or not? We don't know.
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Paul Dickinson: I mean, we're used to US corporations being very significant. You know, you can't open your computer or use your phone without Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Google, Meta, being kind of all over you, you know, buy everything through Amazon. So, it's kind of US seems so central, so important. And yet, there's a phrase a friend shared with me today that Michael Lebrite is using, which is, you know, people sort of talk about the rest of the world outside of the US, but actually it's much better to call it the most of the world. And the most of the world is just moving on. And my friend was at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and said it's absolutely huge. You know, each year it gets bigger. It used to be a very small thing, but now you've got, you know, miles and miles of solar and miles and miles of robots to clean the solar and the batteries and the smart grids and it goes on and on and on. And, you know, the point of it is that none of that technology was from the USA. So the USA is just stepping kind of right out of the entire $2 trillion a year energy transition, or it's doing the best to cripple its domestic industries. You know, my heart goes out to US entrepreneurs who are being kind of crushed by this attempt to sort of lock the USA into a kind of coal steam. But I mean, you know, it does go back to all this kind of backward-looking, make America sort of historic again, make America 18th century again, or whatever.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I think one thing that I would like to just touch on, because I definitely agree with your point about, you know, it's very sad that the US is abdicating a leadership position. We need US investment and entrepreneurialism. Those are the best things about the US, right? The sense of can-do attitude, deploy capital, make something big happen. And the fact that the US is leaving that plane, or the Trump administration is leaving that plane, is kind of heartbreaking for the US and it's heartbreaking for the world.
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Christiana Figueres: Wait, wait, wait, wait, Tom. It's heartbreaking for the US. Is it really, I think that's the question here, is it really going to affect global emission reductions?
00:33:13.120 --> 00:33:24.540
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Well, I think if you have a country as innovative and as entrepreneurial and as powerful as the US, throwing the best mines, the best investment at solutions, then technology will evolve more quickly.
00:33:24.540 --> 00:33:25.200
Christiana Figueres: Ah, yes.
00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:26.280
Tom Rivett-Carnac: That's the point I'm making.
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Paul Dickinson: But there is a brain drain out of the US. If I was a smart climate entrepreneur in the US, I would be leaving and going to the EU or going to China or going to Japan or something.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: That's true. But if you were an energy entrepreneur, then you probably are wondering whether you want to be spending your time on technologies that are no longer supported by the administrative direction of travel. And maybe you'll start thinking about something else that might not be connected to that.
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Christiana Figueres: But do you want to spend your brains on technologies that are obsolete?
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Well, this is the difficult position I think many people are in, right? It's like, what do they do now? Because you can't say these regulations are gone forever. They're going to come back at the state level. They'll probably come back at the federal level. So it's just creating a moment of being frozen, I think.
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Christiana Figueres: Yes.
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Paul Dickinson: And there are two tribes in corporations, in investors, in there's the kind of, yes, we must take lots of action on climate change. And there's a kind of, forget it. And this does send a signal to the kind of, forget it, people, that they're kind of in the ascendancy, that they can not bother thinking about this, that the short term is fine, forget renewables, forget everything. That's a signal. So that's what I think is most dangerous, not really the incremental change, but the signal.
00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:37.380
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Well, and that speaks to what happens in a state-based approach, right? So actually now we will devolve back to a state-based patchwork where California will be very ambitious, as they always have been. Other states will have different levels of regulation. And if you remember the years before the engagement finding, many corporations just had to meet the highest regulation anyway, because they don't want to try to produce products and have different processes that are different state by state. So you could argue that the net effect of this will not be that much because of the way it's complied with.
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Christiana Figueres: Well, and you could also argue that for the next three years, as you have just explained, Tom. Of course, I think the White House will try to stop states from doing that. But that will be a huge legal battle. But the other question is, what happens four years from now, when we have a different administration and some companies have actually been forced because they have presence in different states to do separate production lines meeting very different standards. These companies are going to be breaking down the door of the federal government to say, for God's sake, please standardize this. Because the lack of standardization means huge additional costs for production and manufacturing. Huge additional costs. So to this BS about it's now going to be cheaper, it is complete BS. It's going to be more expensive for these, especially companies that have presence in different states. Yeah.
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Paul Dickinson: I mean, I'm going to throw in the human cost, which is the Environmental Defense Fund, say that by 2055, I know that's a long way away, 30 years, but the increase in emissions they calculate from this action is between 15,000 and 60,000 premature deaths or 15,000 and 58,000 premature deaths and potentially tens of millions of more asthma attacks and the US auto industry, I think, you know, may suffer calamitous blows as a result of this in their export ambitions, but, you know, in the short term, it may mean that they're late to migrate. We'll protect them. I was quite struck by the chair of Ford in the US saying this was good, remembering the chair of Ford in the UK saying it was bad when the rollback of electric vehicle mandate was coming in. So you can even get sort of schizophrenia in companies when they have their short term capex decisions.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I'd like to ask you both a question. At the end of the interview, Manish was saying that actually he believes, and we've heard this from many people, that the era of Trump's kind of unchallenged power is coming to an end. And it may be three years till the next election, but actually we've passed peak Trump, as people have been saying. What do you think it would take to see more of a collective naming from corporate America, from state-based America? We're seeing a few leaders, but it's nothing like the previous way around. I've been slightly surprised at the absence of voices who were so supportive when the endangerment finding came in years ago, when we got the Paris Agreement. And now there's a few, but there is a lot of silence. And I sort of don't blame them because this administration is so vindictive and they really go out after anyone who stands up to them. But what do you think it would take for that to begin to change?
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Christiana Figueres: I think most of us, because I would actually include myself, have been dear caught in the headlights, because we have just been so startled about the speed of all of these decisions coming from the White House, the speed with which one on top of the other on top of the other. And every day, I, for one, say like, okay, I've seen the worst. And then, no, and then there's something even worse the next day. So I think we have been paralyzed by the speed and the breath and the depth of what we're seeing, of the destructive power on, not just on environment, but on social issues, on parity issues, on gender, on cultural diversity issues, on and on and on and on. I think we have just been in disbelief and paralysis about it. I think the fact that there are now, as Manish has explained, that there are now very concrete steps to begin from a legal perspective, to push back, and that the popularity ratings are actually dropping because of all of this craziness. I think we've seen not just the post-Trump peak, but also the tsunami beginning. We have been victims of a tsunami coming at us wanting to destroy us. I think the tsunami is beginning to turn. And I think when people will begin to see, ah, there is something that we can do about this, that's going to take force. This is going to be, ah, yeah, a rollback tsunami that will very likely be demonstrated in the elections this year in the United States. The midterm elections will be a very good weathervane of whether there is enough popular pushback now that will be supported, of course, by legal pushback. But the important piece here is going to be, or the other important piece here, is going to be popular pushback, public opinion pushback.
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Paul Dickinson: Yeah, and just to sort of add to that, I mean, what this administration has shown is the power that the government has to attack commercial interests and corporations that can be devastating. So many law firms have had to kind of cave in, media companies have had to cave in. But your question was, what's it going to take to change? Well, corporations and commercial entities generally, they are herd species, they have a herd instinct. It's what it's going to take is a critical mass of them to sort of turn. And you saw this actually on January the 6th, after the failed kind of coup attempt, when the people went and attacked the Congress on January the 6th, famously. Then actually, Metta withdrew Trump's Facebook account, I think, and it was JP Morgan Chase kind of stopped banking Trump entities. Then everyone changes back again because Trump's back in power. So it's all about how much power he has. If his power is rising, he is untouchable. If his power is falling, more and more will move against him.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. Okay. Well, on that hopeful note, maybe we should bring this week's episode to an end.
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Christiana Figueres: No, I have a question for the two of you. One of our favorite topics on this podcast is acronyms. So here is my current favorite acronym. Question to the two of you. What is the CPTPP?
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Paul Dickinson: I'm so bad at these things and crosswords and stuff. I just completely freeze in terror.
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Christiana Figueres: Okay. Well, it stands for, get ready for this, comprehensive and progressive agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now, I mean quite a mouthful, both the acronym and the name, but here is what it means and why it relates to what we've just been discussing in the United States. This is being offered by our new hero, the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. What he is doing is, he is now brokering a deal between the European Union and a fast-growing Indo-Pacific trade bloc, whose purpose it is to form a anti-Trump trade pact. Currently, the Indo-Pacific trade bloc already includes Canada, of course, the UK, Japan, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and other Pacific nations, actually almost 40 nations, that are on opposite sides of the globe to the United States, and that are banding together to have common rules on trade in order to be the complete alternative to Trump's crazy trade tariffs. Now, the interesting thing is, not only is that they are bringing in the EU into this, but do you think that although this is being formed for trade, can this be a start of a pro-climate alliance, as Carney has been calling for, for alliances of middle powers, as he calls it, to take on the leadership on decarbonizing the economy? That is not what it's being created for, but is it a door into that? Is the question for the two of you.
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Paul Dickinson: Well, I totally have an answer. I was actually going to give you an acronym, which I'm sure you haven't got, Christiana, that Mark Carney, friend of the show, is the L-O-T-F-W. Any good?
00:43:57.620 --> 00:43:59.240
Christiana Figueres: Okay, go for it.
00:43:59.240 --> 00:44:01.920
Paul Dickinson: It's the leader of the free world, a very familiar one. But you know, I just changed it when you talked about climate, and I'm going to call Carney the leader of the free energy world. Because as you've always said, Christiana, the sun never sends you a bill, the wind never sends you a bill, the tide never sends you a bill. So yes, I can absolutely see a grand alliance of the middle powers constructed by Carney and our mutual self-interest. I think little UK would be included and very much built around the future energy technology and not around the last century's energy technology. It's brilliant and inspiring. I'm in.
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Christiana Figueres: I have good news for you, Paul. The UK is already in the trade plot.
00:44:35.900 --> 00:44:37.400
Paul Dickinson: Rule Britannia.
00:44:37.400 --> 00:44:37.700
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Sorry. I think the smart move, and then Mark Carney is more than smart enough to do this, is to never mention climate in it. Because actually this is about energy technologies of the future. So I think it will be that, but I don't think it will ever be named as that. And I don't think it needs to be because actually we've reached the point now where those technologies are so necessary and they're so economic and they're so beneficial, that it's just the infrastructure of the future.
00:45:00.640 --> 00:45:02.800
Christiana Figueres: And I mean, I think it's just a brilliant name, right? Because he's calling it Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. And if there's one thing that the Trump administration doesn't want to do with anyone else, it's partnership. So what an interesting counterforce. And this is what I was talking about before about maybe the tsunami is now coming in the other direction, both of course inside the United States, but internationally, this could be the very welcome reaction internationally to the craziness in the United States.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah, very good. Alright, well thanks friends. Lovely to talk about this. And we'll be back as ever next week. So thanks for listening everyone. Send us your questions, all the details in the show notes. Thanks for listening.
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Christiana Figueres: Bye.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify: Bye.
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Paul Dickinson: See you next week.
