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Obama’s Science Advisor Speaks Out on Biden’s Climate Policy

John Holdren, former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, expresses his optimism regarding the Biden Administration’s approach to climate change policy in the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program,” a podcast produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.

You can hear our complete conversation in the podcast here.

In these podcasts, I converse with very well-informed people from academia, government, industry, and NGOs. John Holdren fits very well in this group, with significant experience in academia, government, and the NGO world.

John Holdren is a Research Professor, and until recently was the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard. He took an extended leave of absence from Harvard, from January 2009 to January 2017 to serve in the Obama administration as the President’s Science Advisor and as Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, and was the longest-serving Science Advisor to the President in the history of the position. Before coming to Harvard, he was a long-time faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded the Energy Resources Group.

During his time as the President’s Science Advisor, the Obama Administration unveiled its ambitious Climate Action Plan (June 2013), and in 2015, nearly 200 countries signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement. In our conversation, John Holdren tells me that those were two of the high points during his time in Washington.

“The biggest low point I would say is that we were not able to get the budget increases for research and development that President Obama had committed himself to at the very beginning of his administration,” Holdren remarks. “We didn’t get there, not from lack of interest, but from lack of ability to persuade the Congress to boost those budgets.”

While his work in Washington was rewarding, it was also very high-pressure:

“It was 24/7/365,” he says. “When you’re what is called a commissioned officer of the president, you are on duty all the time. You can never be out of touch. You can’t go anywhere without having a way for the White House to reach you immediately if the president wants you, and there is such a continuing flow of issues that need your immediate attention.”

Assessing the Biden Administration’s early efforts to shape climate policy, Holdren says he would give it a grade of A-, complimenting the President’s selection of respected officials for key positions, including Secretary of State Tony Blinken, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander, and Deputy Director for Climate and Environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Jane Lubchenco.

“[President] Biden has put together just a superb team. I think it’s by far the strongest team on climate change that’s ever been assembled in a government,” Holdren says. “And when asked what’s the most important thing in achieving success in science and technology policy in government, or indeed any other domain of government activity, I always answer the single most important thing is people. The single most important thing is having an absolutely top-flight team in terms of relevant competencies and their ability and willingness to work seamlessly together. That is what President Biden has put in place.”

When I ask Holdren what he expects from U.S. climate policy over this decade, Holdren surprisingly predicts that the United States will institute a significant carbon tax by 2024.

“It will happen for a couple of reasons, one of which is that the impacts of climate change are now so conspicuous that it is becoming impossible for people to, with any credibility at all, deny that this is an immense challenge to well-being on the planet,” he remarks. “People are coming to understand in larger and larger numbers that this is a challenge that society must rise to meet. And I think the deniers and the wafflers are in retreat. And that’s one of the reasons I think we will get at least quite a lot of what we need in the next few years.”

My complete conversation with John Holdren is the 25^th episode in the Environmental Insights series, with future episodes scheduled to drop each month. You can find a transcript of our conversation at the website of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Previous episodes have featured conversations with:

Gina McCarthy, former Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Nick Stern of the London School of Economics discussing his career, British politics, and efforts to combat climate change
Andrei Marcu, founder and executive director of the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition
Paul Watkinson, Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Jos Delbeke, professor at the European University Institute in Florence and at the KU Leuven in Belgium, and formerly Director-General of the European Commission’s DG Climate Action
David Keith, professor at Harvard and a leading authority on geoengineering
Joe Aldy, professor of the practice of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, with considerable experience working on climate change policy issues in the U.S. government
Scott Barrett, professor of natural resource economics at Columbia University, and an authority on infectious disease policy
Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, and founding co-director of the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School.
Sue Biniaz, who was the lead climate lawyer and a lead climate negotiator for the United States from 1989 until early 2017.
Richard Schmalensee, the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management, and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kelley Kizier, Associate Vice President for International Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund.
David Hone, Chief Climate Change Adviser, Shell International.
Vicky Bailey, 30 years of experience in corporate and government positions in the energy sector.
David Victor, professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego.
Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk at the The New York Times.
Coral Davenport, who covers energy and environmental policy for The New York Times from Washington.
Spencer Dale, BP Group Chief Economist.
Richard Revesz, professor at the NYU School of Law.
Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environment and Law at Yale University.
William Hogan, Raymond Plank Research Professor of Global Energy Policy at Harvard.
Jody Freeman, Archibald Cox Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
John Graham, Dean Emeritus, Paul O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
Gernot Wagner, Clinical Associate Professor at New York University.

“Environmental Insights” is hosted on SoundCloud, and is also available on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

Reflecting on Economics, Politics, and Climate Policy

Addressing climate change with meaningful policy action will be neither cheap nor easy, but presently the greatest barrier to action in the United States is not technological, nor perhaps even economic, but fundamentally political. This becomes a theme in my latest podcast, where I engage in a wide-ranging conversation about economics, politics, and climate change with Gernot Wagner, Clinical Associate Professor at New York University, and former staff economist at the Environmental Defense Fund.

You can hear our complete conversation in the podcast here.

In these podcasts – “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program – I converse with very well-informed people from academia, government, industry, and NGOs. Gernot Wagner fits well in this group, with experience in academia, industry, and the NGO world.

Wagner, whose career also includes time spent as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and a journalist at the Financial Times, brings to his thinking about the economics of climate change policy a rich and varied set of perspectives gained through his years of multi-sectoral experience.

He is a graduate of Harvard College, where he took my environmental economics course as a freshman (and then proceeded to receive the highest grade in the class). In addition, I had the privilege of serving as chair of Gernot’s dissertation committee when he received his Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government from Harvard in 2007.

Gernot Wagner is author of two books, “But will the Planet Notice: How Smart Economics Can Save the World?,”and “Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet,” which he co-wrote with the late Harvard Professor Martin Weitzman, whom he had met his first week on the Harvard campus as a freshman in 1998.

“I went to meet Marty on a Thursday that week,” Wagner recalls in our podcast conversation. “I remember Marty sitting me down and first of all, taking me seriously…much like you did. You did try to dissuade me from taking your class, but then I ended up taking it later that year. But Marty sat me down and guided me through, maybe in an attempt at dissuading me frankly of wanting to become an environmental economist or academic.”

In my podcast conversation with Gernot, we turn to the topic of current-day climate policy, and Wagner sounds cautiously optimistic about the chances that the United States will meet the Biden Administration’s recently announced commitment to reduce CO₂ emissions by 50-to-52 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030, saying that it would be technically and economically feasible, although politically difficult.

“I’d like to think I can make a cogent argument for why it will happen, and this administration is uniquely positioned to make it happen. And the approach it is taking seems to be on the right path,” Wagner says, while also admitting that it will be a challenge for the administration to get any meaningful climate policy through a divided Congress.

Wagner also expresses his hope for establishing a carbon price of between 60 and 300 dollars per ton to provide incentives for companies and industries to reduce CO₂ emissions. Exxon, he notes, has recently come out in support of a carbon price of 50 dollars per ton, but Democrats in Washington are not satisfied with that proposal.

“The progressives in the House wants something that has a higher price equivalent. The Biden Administration might be slightly less ambitious on that front,” he says. “All of it is still much more ambitious than the…simple 50 dollar per ton of CO₂ carbon tax.”

At the end of our conversation, I ask Wagner for his thoughts on the youth climate movements that became prominent in 2019.

“What we do see is amazing action in the right direction, on a whole lot of different dimensions,” Gernot remarks. “Now we are back to – what should this movement push for? And frankly, now we are back to the raw politics of it all. It’s very, very difficult to see – the one simple approach that will just solve it all. That basically doesn’t exist. It exists in theory, maybe. Not in practice.”

My complete conversation with Gernot Wagner is the 24^th episode in the Environmental Insights series, with future episodes scheduled to drop each month. You can find a transcript of our conversation at the website of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Previous episodes have featured conversations with:

Gina McCarthy, former Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Nick Stern of the London School of Economics discussing his career, British politics, and efforts to combat climate change
Andrei Marcu, founder and executive director of the European Roundtable on Climate Change and Sustainable Transition
Paul Watkinson, Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Jos Delbeke, professor at the European University Institute in Florence and at the KU Leuven in Belgium, and formerly Director-General of the European Commission’s DG Climate Action
David Keith, professor at Harvard and a leading authority on geoengineering
Joe Aldy, professor of the practice of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, with considerable experience working on climate change policy issues in the U.S. government
Scott Barrett, professor of natural resource economics at Columbia University, and an authority on infectious disease policy
Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, and founding co-director of the Business and Environment Initiative at Harvard Business School.
Sue Biniaz, who was the lead climate lawyer and a lead climate negotiator for the United States from 1989 until early 2017.
Richard Schmalensee, the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Management, and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kelley Kizier, Associate Vice President for International Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund.
David Hone, Chief Climate Change Adviser, Shell International.
Vicky Bailey, 30 years of experience in corporate and government positions in the energy sector.
David Victor, professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego.
Lisa Friedman, reporter on the climate desk at the The New York Times.
Coral Davenport, who covers energy and environmental policy for The New York Times from the Washington bureau.
Spencer Dale, BP Group Chief Economist.
Richard Revesz, professor at the NYU School of Law.
Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environment and Law at Yale University.
William Hogan, Raymond Plank Research Professor of Global Energy Policy at Harvard.
Jody Freeman, Archibald Cox Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.
John Graham, Dean Emeritus, Paul O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University

“Environmental Insights” is hosted on SoundCloud, and is also available on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

The Path Ahead for U.S. Climate Change Policy

It is clear that the Biden Administration is devoting substantial attention to addressing climate change, certainly in comparison with the previous Trump administration, but there is a long road ahead for the development of substantive domestic policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. That is one of the messages that emerges most clearly from the most recent webinar in our series, Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy, sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA). A video recording (and transcript) of the entire webinar is available here.

As you know, in this webinar series we feature leading authorities on climate change policy, whether from academia, the private sector, NGOs, or government. In this most recent Conversation, I was fortunate to engage with someone who has solid experience in at least three of these sectors – academia, government, and the NGO community. I’m talking about Nathaniel (Nat) Keohane, my former student, co-author, and friend.

Nat Keohane is Senior Vice President for Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund. In the Obama administration, from 2001 to 2012, he served as Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment, and before that, he was Chief Economist at EDF. Going back a bit further, he was an Associate Professor at the Yale School of Management, and before that, he earned his PhD degree in Political Economy & Government at Harvard University, and his BA degree in History and Environmental Studies at Yale University.

Our wide-ranging conversation took place just one week after the Biden administration’s Earth Day Climate Summit (April 22-23), and so it was a very good time to talk about the newly-announced U.S. pledge – its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement – and about how the target in the NDC, a 50-52% percent reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below the 2005 level by the year 2030, might be accomplished.

More broadly, Nat Keohane shares his insights on both the science and the politics affecting climate policy, and his hopes for the upcoming UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP-26), scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland.

“President Biden and his team hit the ground running immediately,” Keohane says, referring to the administration’s move to reenter the Paris Agreement on January 20th. “But there’s still a fair amount of skepticism in the rest of the world…and [there is] a need for the U.S. to demonstrate that it’s serious [about its commitment to climate policy].”

Keohane goes on to suggest that the ambitious new U.S. NDC will serve to incentivize other large emitters to increase the ambition of their pledges prior to the upcoming COP. Both Canada and Japan have already done so, Keohane notes, and there are hopes that China, India, and Brazil may follow suit if US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry is successful in his climate diplomacy efforts with foreign leaders.

Here at home, Nat acknowledges that the Biden Administration faces an uphill battle passing significant climate legislation, but he argues that it can take very meaningful steps forward by regulating methane gas emissions, increasing investment in green technologies, and eventually building public support for a national carbon price, which would both stabilize GHG emissions and raise revenues.

“If we are going to really address climate change and reduce CO₂ emissions at the scale and scope and pace that we need to, both to solve the climate problem and to meet the President’s [GHG reduction] target … the best way to do it would include some sort of limit and price on carbon pollution across the economy.”

Keohane is very aware that the “the politics of a carbon price on Capitol Hill are challenging,” but he believes that a carbon-pricing approach could be sold to the American people as a way to raise significant revenues, as much as a quarter of a trillion dollars a year. “That’s a lot of money, and there aren’t a lot of other sources of revenue that come up with 250 billion dollars,” he says.

A carbon border adjustment – an import fee levied by countries with ambitious climate policies on goods manufactured in countries with no or less ambitious climate policies – is a controversial proposal that many countries and regions, including the European Union, are seriously considering (and in the case of the EU, moving to implement). Keohane calls it a “blunt force instrument … used to ideally help create incentives for other countries to act and to increase their ambition … but I don’t think we should think of it as a fine-tuned way to establish a carbon price that fairly addresses the carbon content of imported goods.”

As nations around the world prepare for COP-26 (assuming it does take place), Keohane expresses his hope that the U.S. will continue to leverage bilateral negotiations to encourage other large countries, particularly China, to increase their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) before arriving in Glasgow. But, interestingly, Keohane also argues that climate leaders need to rethink the role of the COP moving forward.

“I don’t know exactly what that looks like. Maybe it involves more engagement among countries with best-practice sharing. Maybe it involves bringing in civil society or businesses to talk about implementation, but we need to think creatively,” he remarks. “Rather than have the object of every COP be some negotiated text in a world in which we’ve got the text … what we need is implementation.”

All of this and much more can be seen and heard in our full Conversation here. I hope you will check it out.

Previous episodes in this series – Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy – have featured Meghan O’Sullivan’s thoughts on Geopolitics and Upheaval in Oil Markets, Jake Werksman’s assessment of the European Union’s Green New Deal, Rachel Kyte’s examination of “Using the Pandemic Recovery to Spur the Clean Transition,” Joseph Stiglitz’s reflections on “Carbon Pricing, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Green Economic Recovery,” Joe Aldy describing “Lessons from Experience for Greening an Economic Stimulus,” Jason Bordoff commenting on “Prospects for Energy and Climate Change Policy under the New U.S. Administration,” and Ottmar Edenhofer talking about “The Future of European Climate Change Policy.”

Watch for an announcement about our next webinar. You will be able to register in advance for the event on the website of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.