280: What does Trump 2.0 mean for climate?

Tom: [00:18:00] I mean, the irony of that being the way we discover a carbon price for the global economy would be just unbelievable. But I think it's been clear for a long time in the US, we were never going to get to a carbon price with a big cap and trade bill that had climate written on the front. So maybe there is something about the fact that actually protecting US jobs and economic growth is the way in which we get to that. So I just want to ask you, I mean, the climate movement writ large is not set up to address that challenge, right? It's set up for a completely different form of pressure around the necessity to listen to the science, to respond to where we are. I mean, does that whole thing need rethinking now? Because it's hard to see that organizations that are trying to say to the government, listen to the science and create policy in response to these future damages, are going to have any effect on government policy in the next few years. Maybe that should be rethought and based much more around the line that you're talking around protecting, manufacturing and bringing back jobs.

Greg: [00:18:56] You know, I would hesitate to say that that movement needs rethinking. That energy needs to be there. We need to be exploring the science. We need to be hearing what the latest and most up to date analysis from the experts in the field. What I think we need to do is expand our purview in terms of the kinds of policies and the kinds of solutions that can get us there. Um, and we need to ensure that we're not in a, in a position or a posture in which perfect is the enemy of the good and recognize that the path to a global economy that is decarbonized is going to require a sequence of many, many, many different government policies and actions. Progress will not always be linear, and we need to do the best we can with the political lineup that we have in place. And so as I look ahead to the next two and four years, I'm focused on, okay, what are the priorities of this administration? What are the priorities of this Congress and how within those priorities, can we offer them solutions that are consistent with what they're trying to achieve, while also making a meaningful difference in supporting lower global emissions? And and I think that's an area where the climate community needs to be repositioning the way they're thinking. I'm not suggesting folks need to walk away from the science. I'm suggesting that if you're engaging in US politics every two and four years, you gotta you get a new hand. Yeah. And so every two and four years you play the best hand you can. And then when the deck gets reshuffled, you look at your hand again and you see what what's in front of you.

Tom: [00:20:41] I think that's incredibly pragmatic and I love that attitude. And just the last thing I want to ask you about is a big part of the challenge in the world that we occupy on climate and understanding the science is that winning slowly is the same as losing on climate, and we can make the progress we can. But if we accept the reality of the hand in front of us, and there's only so many deals we can do and they don't really take us forward, we could just lose this window overall and trigger these alarming feedback loops. So my question to you is you're a guy who understands how to engage with governments and move forward, and you work. National Association of Manufacturers and others, do you think there is a pathway with this government to actually continue to reduce US emissions in anything approximate to the last few years? Do you think we can be as successful in driving down emissions with this strategy, or are we going to see either an increase or a slowing of the reduction in the US?

Greg: [00:21:34] I look at it from a longer time scale. This is, in my mind, again, a multi-decade challenge. And I do think over the next two and four years, actions can be taken to continue positioning the U.S. on a declining trajectory. Ultimately, but probably more importantly, for the US to play a larger role in supporting global decarbonization, whether it's building up the US clean energy manufacturing base, whether it's the implementation of a trade policy that encourages lower emissions from exporting countries into the United States. I believe that we can establish policies over the course of the second Trump administration that will long term have a declining impact on emissions. It's not going to be the priority of President Trump. You're not going to hear him talking about needing to mitigate emissions, but that does not mean that we cannot make progress.

Tom: [00:22:32] Greg. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great to talk to you.

Greg: [00:22:34] You as well. Thanks for having me.

Tom: [00:22:40] So great to talk there to Greg Berthelsen. I mean, I think having somebody who, you know, he he worked for the National Association of Manufacturers for many years trying to lobby Congress people. He's now been leading the Climate Leadership Council for the last few years, since the very sad and untimely death of Ted Halstead. But, I mean, what's so interesting there? First of all, I love the practical approach. He's like, well, this is the reality we've got. Now let's amend and see where we can move forward. We're going to need a lot of that. I'm curious with both of you how that landed, because it's such a different philosophy of change, working according to the existing interests that sit there and not putting our agenda front and center and pushing for it. What were you both thinking about as you were listening to that conversation?

Paul: [00:23:21] Look, we discussed earlier, you know, there's a certain ice goes down the spine, you know, around some of the more problematic aspects of the inauguration and the new Trump administration. But I, I really salute him for thinking about the long term. You know, I mean, you know, we've all worked in climate change for a couple of decades. Uh, you know, four years is 20% of a couple of decades or less. And more significantly, I think, you know, this is one country, the USA. And there's so much going on in the USA. So we've got one particularly theatrical moment at the federal level and so much else going on at the level of the corporation, at the level of the financial institution, the investment is still going, the technology is still going. You know, China has got these massive investments in productive capacity. But decarbonizing society is on so many different dimensions. So I found his optimism infectious. And it helped a lot to kind of melt some of the ice that had gone down my spine on Monday.

Tom: [00:24:11] I agree with that. I also think there are real chat. I mean, there's ESG outflows last year very significantly the first time in a few years. So there's a chilling effect that goes on elsewhere.

Paul: [00:24:19] And maybe it was the wrong name for it. You know, maybe it's going to be called free energy tech. You know, and it's going to go back up again. There's no hard and fast rule about a negative future.

Tom: [00:24:27] But, Christiane, I mean, what do you think about the theory he put out there, which is that the way we might discover a global price on carbon is via Trump trade policies, bringing in protectionism. I mean, such an interesting point of view. Can you see that happening?

Christiana: [00:24:39] Yeah. It's possible. I very much appreciate the thoughtfulness of Greg's position and the efforts that he has been leading in the past, and that he will obviously be leading. Now, just from a practical point of view, it is absolutely not only the best but the only way forward. And it makes a lot of sense just from a rational, reasoned perspective. So I very much appreciate that. I am sitting, however, with a stone in my stomach, because I could almost embrace the thought that over the next few years, through different means with a different ideology, The United States will continue to reduce its emissions and contribute to global emission reduction. I could almost embrace it if I did not put that side by side with the intention that comes behind the Trump policies. That's the piece that has me with a stone in my stomach, because this is a far cry from climate justice, from social justice. This is a far cry from the intersectionality that we know that exists. This is the intention behind this. Should it occur, should the emissions begin to reduce and and the US manufacturing industry continue a competitive path? The intention behind it is further concentration of wealth and power. That's the intention behind it. And that's the piece that, you know, is a stone in my stomach. Because it is not just about reducing emissions, it is also about everything that comes with it. It is about protecting the most vulnerable, and that's that. Nothing could be farther from his. Their intention is just about further, further amassing wealth and power in the hands of the few, sacrificing the well-being of the most vulnerable. And that's the piece that I just I mean, I share Greg's rational, practical approach and. Wow, what a high A price to pay. What a high price to pay.

Paul: [00:27:29] Yeah, and I mean, Christiana, I think you're right on. That's the kind of the meta problem behind all of this. And of course, you know, yesterday that the inauguration was all about promises, whether things change for the people and if they don't, people are going to want change.

Christiana: [00:27:43] Yeah. But the thing is that he makes all of these promises a, you know, we don't even know what he's actually going to be able to implement because he, he does do laundry lists and then he comes up against reality. So we don't know that.

Tom: [00:27:54] Although Supreme Court.

Christiana: [00:27:56] Yeah yeah.

Tom: [00:27:56] Yeah yeah.

Christiana: [00:27:57] Bennet presidency I mean you know, even so even so the thing is it's all about further putting those who are already at the top of the pyramid even further at the top of the pyramid, while at the same time, a storyline that says that that concentration of wealth and power is actually going to benefit the bottom of the pyramid and the bottom of the pyramid believes it.

Paul: [00:28:26] He gives them something to believe in, rightly or wrongly.

Tom: [00:28:29] No, I mean, I hear you and I mean, you know, there's a whole bit of political analysis as to how that was sold in terms of domestic. You know, the US is a country with an enormous amount of poverty. And there was a big belief that was promulgated by the Trump presidency that this type of economic structure would support them. And we saw that in some of the Senate confirmation hearings where they talk about increasing tax cuts for the wealthiest, but not increasing the minimum wage. So that is the economic model that these people are going to be putting out. The interesting thing to me is whether or not and this is so, so 100% agree with you. That is incredibly painful. And we're going to see real suffering, both in the US and around the world as a result of that. And the strategic question and God bless, Greg for thinking about this, is what are the angles by which we can take that impulse and utilize that to try to bring in narratives that can. But but it takes you to a dark place, right? I mean, so now if you look to that, I was listening to Greg and thinking, you know, imagine a campaign that says something like, they're taking you for fools.

Tom: [00:29:30] If you're in the US, all these people around the world are continuing to emit while you and the US have become more efficient. And so as a result, they're taking away your manufacturing jobs. We should tax them. We should take their money. I mean, it's a very dark narrative of like, we need to like, take more of this thing. But you can see how that could be worked up into a form of climate populism that actually could generate a sense of anger, that people around the world are continuing to emit carbon, and yet they're taking this economic opportunity. We need to tax them and take their dollars. Weirdly, I can suddenly see a political pathway to a place where that becomes feasible. The impact of that could well be the discovery of a global carbon price, the fact that countries would start putting border tariffs on each other, that might well be the world we start stepping into. It's incredibly complicated because people suffer and we might see policies that actually begin to incentivize emissions reductions.

Christiana: [00:30:23] Exactly. Exactly. I mean that that's the irony of what we, you know, could be facing that we have, let's call it protectionist mechanics. And what we completely lose is the spirit of protecting the common good and the commons. Right. The Commons. So the commons sort of disappear and all of a sudden what I'm doing is I'm protecting my own territory within my own political, economic and fiscal boundary. The spirit of it is so anathema to the challenge of climate change and to addressing climate change in a globally coordinated way. I get the mechanics and I get it, you know that that's probably the only way forward. It still doesn't relieve the stone in my stomach.

Paul: [00:31:12] Yeah. And the last thing I'll just say is, you know, that rhetoric, of course, Trump himself adopted yesterday. He spoke about pulling out the Paris agreement, said it was going to save the US $1 trillion. But then, critically, he said the reason he's pulling out is because he says the air comes over, the bad air comes over from China and is in the USA. And he said, unless everybody does it, it doesn't work. That's what he said.

Tom: [00:31:34] There you go. So here we are again. Beginning of Trump 2.0. We never thought we'd be back here, but here we are. So we're going to have to do everything we can in the coming years to accept the I mean, this is a heavy defeat today, right, that we're back in this situation where Trump is going to be taking us in a different direction. But we've got no choice. We've got to keep going. We've got to find pathways. People like Greg are doing it. There is always something to do.

Christiana: [00:31:54] Yeah. Huge shout out to Greg.

Tom: [00:31:56] Honestly, huge.

Paul: [00:31:57] Shout out that the better spirits of the of the global business system.

Tom: [00:32:00] Yeah. And there will always be ways right. There will always be ways to keep making progress no matter what happens in the next few years. So we will keep doing this. We'll keep finding the ways we'll keep partnering with people having these conversations. So you know.

Paul: [00:32:11] Trump, Trump can fight fight, fight. And we'll. Peace. Peace. Peace. Our way to an agreement.

Tom: [00:32:16] There you go.

Tom: [00:32:18] So just before we go, we just wanted Paul. I know you've been following very closely. Everything's been happening at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Give us an update. What's been happening?

Paul: [00:32:26] Well, I mean, there's a million things to talk about. It's a huge event with, you know, lots of very important people from all over the world. But it is to some degree designed around a key report, which is the assessment of global risks. And I'm just going to focus on that for a minute, because this year, from the respondents to the question, they saw the number one risk in 2025, state based armed conflict at 23%. Then they had extreme weather events at 14%, Geoeconomic confrontation, 8%, misinformation, disinformation 7%, societal polarization 6%, and an economic downturn 5%. Critical changes in Earth system 4%. If you combine extreme weather events with critical changes to Earth system, it's 18%. It's kind of the number two. So the number one is state based armed conflict. The number two is extreme weather and and critical changes to earth systems. So once again I think that the the business community, you know, alongside the political community at Davos, recognize that essentially, you know, this isn't going away. This is kind of the big one. And as many climate change experts, particularly in the military, will tell you, climate change impacts and military conflict are often co-located and it's a threat multiplier. So I would say the short story about Davos is big conversation about the impact of AI, machine intelligence and a big recognition of environmental risk, combined with what you could call basic old school conflict risk. And that's the domination of the agenda.

Tom: [00:33:53] Yeah, I mean, I'm not in Davos this year. I've been for the last few years. And Christiano obviously, you know used to go for many years and have there's always a Christiana least favorite experience of the year. Raging introvert goes to Davos. But you always did a brilliant job. I mean lots of our team are there and I've had various chats with them and they say actually we're kind of back to where we were. You know these things go in cycles. There's been years when climate was top of the agenda and everyone's talking about it. And then there's, you know, last few years have been a lot about I. The feedback I've had so far from the team members are there is no one's talking about climate. This is all about national protectionism, international wars. What Trump's going to do in AI and climate is like, you know, a way down into the sub tier.

Christiana: [00:34:33] But, Tom, interestingly enough, that's consistent with the view that Greg just shared with us.

Tom: [00:34:38] Yeah, that's.

Christiana: [00:34:39] True. That's consistent. That is like we do not tattoo climate on our forehead. This is about, you know, protectionism. This is about new trade rules. Could all of that have actually a positive effect on emissions. Abby. And and without waving the climate flag. It's very consistent.

Paul: [00:34:59] Yeah. In the end, free energy will always win my view.

Tom: [00:35:01] Well and yes, yes, if we can get to that point and people realize what that is, that's good. All right. Great. Thank you for that insight. We'll have more on Davos next week when we know what the outcome is. Thanks for joining us this week everybody. Lovely to talk to you too. See you next week.

Christiana: [00:35:14] Bye bye.