 Good morning, good afternoon depending on where you are happy Friday and welcome to today's conversation climate policy and action the next four years this will be a conversation with Frank says no and john E Morton. We will begin our program shortly please want you to note that the q amp a function is turned on so please submit any questions you might have through that functionality there at the bottom of your zoom window and we will address them as we can throughout the course of the conversation, we will begin momentarily thank you. Welcome everybody to our very interesting conversation today, looking at the road ahead for the Biden administration on the agenda surrounding climate change, I'm Frank says no. I hang out at the George Washington University and planet forward and all sorts of good things relating to sustainability and climate change, but it is my great pleasure this year to be a global futures fellow with Arizona State and through this connection and we're partnering and collaborating on many things, we are very firmly focused on what is right now, in many ways the most pressing challenge facing humanity at the most remarkable moment where we have science and technology and innovation coinciding with a massive political change change of administrations in Washington from an administration that was not putting climate change anywhere near the top of the agenda or maybe on an agenda at all to one that is putting it very very high up there. I'm looking forward to this conversation with John Morton who worked in the Obama administration the National Security Council, leading the way on energy and climate change but first I'd like to hand this over to Peter Schlosser. He's the Vice President Vice Provost of the Julie Enrigly Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. And he is a great proponent of the idea that we need to look forward across disciplines to really make a very substantial change and that's what he's trying to do so Peter, over to you. Frank and what a great event we have ahead of us. I'm looking forward together with all of you to this stimulating this discussion that Frank and John will have in the after just a short introduction that I will give. We are looking into put context around that if we are looking at the world that presents that we are presented with that we actually have shaped. We are actually seeing that the consequences of many of the pressures we have put upon the planet. We have we are in essence we are asking the planet to provide us with more than the planet has to give. So that expresses itself in many of the well known features and that are being talked about that you all know about, such as by diversity loss loss of ecosystem is the related worry about food security, water security and climate and climate often and this will be the topic of today's conversation of course climate is a topic that has been discussed in so long time and has been discussed very controversially at times very polarized and when I'm looking at the at the climate is discussion. I often see that you know that there are many facets to it. We know about it since a long time. We also know by now actually since quite a while what we can do to deal with that discussion or with that problem actually and if we are considering what influences that it is decisions that are made on many fronts, it's decisions that are made by individuals, it's decisions that are made by the private sector by many other stakeholders and importantly in the political domain. And I often, you know, like to compare the changes on the political side with those that we are often using describing climate, which is in climate, you can have abrupt changes, you can go from one state to another. I think we see the same in the political landscape. For example, changes in administration really can lead to very different takes and different actions with respect to environmental issues in our case climate. One of these changes is just ahead of us and January 20 2021, a new administration in the US will take over and will set the country's priorities with respect to climate change. Now that offers a lot of opportunities. And some of them, of course, include the change in the energy system. We have now the opportunity to change the energy system from mainly fossil based to increasingly a system that increasingly uses renewable energy. That this is not just a benefit for the climate system, but also offers opportunities for society as a whole for the private sector. There are opportunities to help the atmosphere to find an equilibrium with respect to the greenhouse gases. For example, support for negative emissions that we need to meet the goals that are laid out in the Paris Accord that was signed about five years ago, but also the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1.5 degree report that lays out a very clear timeline that we have to meet, which is, if we want to keep the planet at a temperature of less than two degrees above what was considered as the natural temperature, the climatology, we have to have our emissions of greenhouse gas of CO2 in that in that sense. In that case, by 2030 very short time scale, we have to act very quickly to do that. And by the middle of the century, we have to be in essence carbon neutral in the sense net zero carbon. And that means that by then we have to have upscaled our capacity to take carbon back out of the atmosphere, typically known as negative emissions. So these are topics that Frank and John will discuss, the opportunities to further them in this new administration. There are also, of course, natural topics that are at the center of what the Julia and Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory does. And here we are not just dealing with the technical issues with understanding from a natural science and engineering perspective, what the situation is, what we can do about it. But we also are looking at what kind of choices that society have, and within society, the political domain to move us forward more rapidly along such a trajectory. And the final point, we are in a very special time right now, we have just about nine months ago, maybe a year ago by now, we have experienced, not just in addition to our long term changes, the event of the coronavirus COVID-19 that came as a shock. And that actually shows us how fragile the earth system is, how little it takes to bring it out of balance, how prepared we have to be to take action when we have the opportunity to act. But it also, if there is one silver lining in that besides the vaccine, it is that there are now significant resources made available for the recovery. And of course we all hope that some of these resources in the new administration will be used to help accelerate the action to mitigate phenomena such as climate change in a much more rapid pace. So with that, I will conclude my introductory remark and turn over to Frank. Let me just say a few words about Frank Cessno. Frank is the director of strategic initiatives for the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University. As already mentioned, he's also and we are lucky that he is serving that role as a Global Futures Fellow at Arizona State University within the Global Futures Laboratory. He founded the Planet Forward platform and he hosts and facilitates on that platform the salon series that focus on topics such as energy policy, green shops and food production. The way I got to know Frank quite a while ago was when I moved from Germany to the US, I was getting oriented in a new media world. And one person that caught my attention on CNN was Frank because he reported from around the world from Washington and I found his contributions always extremely factual, true thinking and informative. And so I was always looking for contributions that Frank made in that way. I want to mention that Frank got many recognitions for his contributions and just want to highlight one, he was awarded an Emmy for his 1993 report on the Midwest flooding. So even then, he already was deeply concerned about the environment and where we are driving ourselves in by putting too much pressure on it. So with that, I will hand over to Frank and I'm looking forward to an inspiring conversation between him and John Morton. Peter thank you very much really appreciate that and you're very thoughtful remarks. Harking back to 1993, which seems like yesterday but wasn't. You know, I want to thank you for your leadership at the Global Futures Laboratory at ASU generally as you is really leading the way with a commitment to sustainability and to bringing different disciplines together to solve problems and that's what you should all be about. I want to introduce John Morton John Morton joins us with an incredible background John partner at pollination now specialist in climate change and advisory and investment firm. So John welcome to you thanks for joining us. Thank you very much Frank and thank you Peter and thanks for the invitation to be part of this conversation. John, you not only are at pollination and a partner there and I'm going to ask you about that minute. You were in the Obama administration the National Security Council, you were sort of the energy and climate change driver there. And we're going to tap into your best knowledge of what happened in that administration what's happened since and what may happen going forward, but what is pollination quickly what is this firm that you're bleeding now. Sure, so what pollination is a one year old startup, essentially, we're about 60 people big right now and we are a firm dedicated to advising and investing around climate change. We see the imperative to move on climate change as both an environmental imperative a moral a social human rights a human human health issue, but also a tremendous economic opportunity for companies, governments, corporations, financial institutions, etc, who can reorient their thinking around the fact that we are moving to a low carbon economy. And so we advise basically on transition pathways for companies and and financial institutions governments etc, who are looking to expedite the movement to a lower carbon economy. Obama administration, as I mentioned, you were the senior director for energy and climate and national security council. So you looked at international energy climate change issues. You were also before that. You were vice president for investment policy over at the overseas private investment corporation so there you were overseeing big portfolios of investment, like $20 billion or something like that around the world. So, you kind of know what you're talking about here. And I just want to thank you again for joining us. We're having this conversation pretty timely moment in fact I just got an alert on my phone from NPR. Just to be clear about where it's coming from. Here's what it says 2020 is in a dead heat tie for the hottest year on record. Here are four ways extreme temperatures are took a toll on the planet. The Biden administration is coming at a very different point in both the planets trajectory and what's happening, and in the business environment and the political environment. What are you looking forward to in terms of how significant, they're really going to be able to make climate change as a as an issue. Yeah, well, I mean so it's a good question I think like all the indications are pointing in the right direction from the standpoint of the incoming administration from me first of all the team that they've put together is is unprecedented in many ways, both the seniority of it the diversity of it the diversity of it, and diversity from not just a, not just a racial standpoint but diversity of backgrounds experiences and and and focuses within the climate conversation. This is as much an environmental justice set of considerations for the Biden administration as it is an environmental imperative, and the two things are closely intermarried. There is a, there is a, there's a there's a tremendous energy around the team the structure, the priority that's been given to climate change by administration has has made climate change, one of its top four stated priorities. That's never happened before for any incoming administration. And I think what really gives me hope and and and assurance that this is not going to be a, you know, an afterthought or a or a struggle to to kind of implement these ideas is that Biden is entering and with economic what I would call economic investments behind him in two very specific ways one, there's a huge stimulus and probably several rounds of stimulus recovery funding that will be coming through. So because of COVID in response to exactly so in the spirit of never letting me a crisis, you know, never, never, never lose an opportunity from a crisis. This is a moment to orient that those investments in those very progressive forward leaning ways. Number one, and number two, we're at a point with respect to the underlying costs of many of the enabling technologies behind the transition to a low carbon economy. Many of those costs have come down so quickly, and so consistently over the last let's say 10 years that what would have been an uphill push and was an uphill push during the last stimulus bill in 2008 2009 coming out of the Great Recession to try to orient some of those funds toward renewables etc. I think now we have economic tailings those are cheaper technologies easier to deploy far more acceptance of them in the country. When you came in, and when Obama came in, in 2008, most of these renewables were vastly more expensive than the fossil fuels that they were competing with. That's not always the case now. We'll come back to that but let me ask you about the team, the new team here in the Biden administration. John Kerry special envoy for climate, Gina McCarthy former EPA administrator, National Climate Advisor, focus domestically, Michael Regan, who will head the environmental protection agency, first African American man to do that. Brenda Mallory to serve as the White House Council on environmental quality, she's an environmental law expert, and she will be the first black chair of the Council on environmental quality. Helen Representative Deb Holland she'd be the at the Department of the Interior first Native American to be in a cabinet position. Jennifer Granholm energy secretary Jennifer Granholm has been part of planet forward in the past. I know her very very well she is a fierce advocate for electric vehicles and for renewable energy and climate change heading the energy department. Helen Treasury Secretary, climate's a huge issue for her, Pete Buttigieg transportation secretary, same thing for him. How do you see in the practical sense, this team, putting climate change across government. What will be the biggest shift from what we're experiencing and have experienced under the Trump administration which has been a big advocate to deregulate and support fossil fuels. The biggest shift is what you just what you just laid out the fact that these people who have been appointed or nominated to these roles are seasoned senior executives and government officials who have have have have a track record of getting things done. And the fact that you did just what I was going to do which was which was not stop at EPA, not stop at CEQ, not stop at the traditional environmental organizations but you very specifically talked about transportation you talked about energy you talked about Treasury. Let's add agriculture to that to that mix as well. Climate change is a is a whole of government, it's a whole of world but it's a whole of government problem. And the fact that we are appointing nominating people who have very specifically said that climate change will be part of their agenda in agencies where climate change has always been kind of a peripheral issue, never really, you know the spotlight. I think is a huge indication again of the seriousness with which this incoming. What about what about the criticism though and there has been some that a lot of these folks are back for a second gig. They're old timers they don't represent the, the AOC new generation green new deal. Yeah, sure I mean, look, show me a transition in history where the early nominees have been universally and you know endorsed by by everyone and you know and I'll be surprised. I think what you have here is a very compelling mixture of seasoned folks who are coming back to into service and and some new appointees who are certainly going to breathe some new blood into the into the conversation. I guess I would argue here that with something that is as urgent and as pressing as as as climate change. It certainly does not hurt to have people who have worked together before and who understand how to get things done within government. I've personally been in, you know, in the situation room in many in many very high level meetings with John Kerry and Gina McCarthy and others, and they work well together, and they know each other, and that is a benefit. So let me ask you one more about that and then I want to crawl into the particulars and assigns and some of the other things of what lies ahead. There are some pretty big names here. Some of them have some pretty big egos. Who's going to call the shots on this. Is it John Kerry. Now, he's, he's bizarre. Right. Is it, is it, is it, you know, Jennifer Granholm, she's the energy secretary. She's not all these players. How do you make this, how does this, this actually work. Well, it's a, it's a good question. And I think it's the right one to be asking and I, and I'm sure that the team putting you know is is focused on this. Let me say, structurally, on the domestic side, we've seen Gina McCarthy and her deputy Ali Zaidi who is a terrific guy as well with with deep ties in both the Obama administration and most recently in New York State as their lead climate, climates are there. The structure there is that Gina McCarthy will be helping to coordinate and manage the domestic agencies and their implementation of climate policy. On the international side, it's a little bit less clear on how that will tie into the White House and I think that's something that the team is thinking hard about now is how do you ensure that John Kerry, who will be sitting at state but has a position on the National Security Council for matters of climate, how do you ensure that that operation is well integrated into the functioning of the of the West Wing that has historically occurred through the National Security Council where I sat with a deputy national security officer who oversees the climate focus. And I think the question will be, who is that person, how does that team look, what the integration looks like, and that's a position that has not yet been appointed. All right john let's climb into how this actually gets done now for a little bit. Biden campaign on a platform and I'm pulling the words from his from his campaign to put the United States on an irreversible path to achieve net zero emissions economy wide, no later than 2050. What are their priorities. Where do you expect them to start. Yeah, so I mean, first of all, let's think about what you just said net zero by 2050. I think for most people who are probably paying attention to this conversation for the first time or who aren't well versed in it that seems almost like an absurdity. Right, how do you take all the carbon out of out of an economy in a 30 year period. The fact is, it's not an absurd. There are very clear kind of pathways and trajectories that have been worked on for literally the last decade that show various ways of achieving that goal, you know Princeton just to put out a really interesting and detailed a study two days ago now that I recommend folks look at with with their own pathways to net zero. But the fact is we did the same exercise in the Obama administration. And the fact is there's dozens hundreds literally of dials that one can adjust in order to get to that to get to that. Where will they start. Where do you expect to start dialing. I think that you know there's there's some easy ones to start, and those are dials that we had dialed up pretty hard during the during the last years of the Obama administration and I expect we will kind of revert to those very quickly so cafe standards and fuel economy standards for cars, pretty clear that not only is that something that we should be doing from an environmental standpoint, but lo and behold, most auto manufacturers want that to happen as well, because here's a fact 40% of the world's population now lives in countries that have stated that they will be banning the the the production and sale of the internal combustion engine. If you're an auto manufacturer today why on earth would you not be gearing your R&D and your production toward a lower carbon electric electrified vehicle fleet I think US manufacturers realize that now, and realize that the Trump administration probably gave them too much leeway, which puts them at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis their foreign foreign competitors. I think the second area is clearly around kind of methane emissions. Methane is a dangerous as you well know extremely potent dangerous greenhouse gas. Again, it's an area where the large oil and gas companies actually welcome further regulation because if you're releasing less methane, you are capturing more of the product that you're trying to sell. I'd like this administration to work with existing fossil fuel companies for example, in a collaborative way on that or just to slam them with regulation. I think that there will be a collaborative approach and I think this is an example of where the industry sees it coming and industries have to decide right now, right. Are they going are they going to stand and oppose and fight or are they going to get on board with a transition which is occurring not just in the US but globally. French oil company Angi in September was the French government did not allow Angi to make a $20 billion investment into the United States, because it was seen that the company receiving that investment in Louisiana was not what was a was more methane from its Texas oil fields, then was appropriate and consistent with Angi's own commitment to transition. So we're seeing decisions made overseas that reflect and are taking it take beginning to take a toll on high emitting sectors in the US. John let me ask you about another dial that I know that the Biden administration is going to try to turn because I've already talked about that. It's a dial that the Trump administration turned the other direction which is around regulation. And what the government is doing and that's really everything from the Paris climate accord to the clean power plan but deregulation in particular that the Trump administration went after methane standards as you mentioned pipelines to coal ash rule. Fuel economy standards or oil leases and war is a good example in Alaska, which of these deregulated areas, do you expect the Biden administration will target first, and how long will it take them if they do that to change. There's a series of as we've seen there's a series of executive you know you can do a lot with the executive with executive pen and the executive orders and I think I you know I've highlighted a couple of the ones that I expect would would occur first around oil and gas and around ending leases on federal lands for for extractive industries. And mine and oil and gas exploration. I would expect you know fairly significant cafe standards and vehicle regulations to go to go back into force. But again, I don't think that these are going to be unexpected and nor do I think they will receive nearly the level of opposition that they might have received. You know 10 years ago when these were were issued in really. Yeah, I mean of course there's going to be opposition, but the question is, you have to. I mean industry has to step forward and say we we we oppose, you know, stronger regulation the question is what do they then do about it. How much did they mobilize how much do they activate around around these things. So let's pivot into industry and where the financial finance markets are, you know when President Obama came in in 2008 and tried to make this an issue was reported out earlier renewable energy was a very expensive alternative to cheap fossil fuels. So renewable can be cheaper. How do you see the Biden administration, sort of expediting advancing accelerating a transformation that's already underway what does it do to push that. So I think what you just said is really important. And so let me focus on the underlying facts. Last year, the last two years in the US, about 75% of the new energy installation capacity that was built in this country was renewable energy. About 75% right this is this is under a Trump administration which is overtly, you know, supportive of coal, supportive of fossil, you know, development and and discouraging of renewable energy 75%. Globally, it was about the same number. The I, the International Energy Association predicts that in the next three years, up to 90% of the new energy installation capacity that's being built will be renewable energy right. So we are at a point. I like to say where, where alternative energy today is actually the fossil industry. If you're talking about new development. Conventional energy is renewable energy today globally. And that's occurring not because of environmental regulations mainly but because it's cheaper and the costs have come down so precipitously. So, and that's a that's a global phenomenon that's not simply a US phenomenon. So I think one of the challenges is is not necessarily how do you expedite the deployment of renewables because that's actually happening at a relatively healthy clip right now. And I do a question and one which has international implications is how do you think about financing the closure of high emitting coal assets around the world, because on one side we need to be doing more green. But on the other side we actually need to be, you know, shutting down beginning to expedite the the transition away from existing emitting high emitting assets, and that's a really hard question, which is kind of what does Biden do about that. Well so it's a good it's a good question and one that the team I think is looking, looking pretty, pretty carefully at the fact is if you look today. If you're a public if you're a public financier as I was at the overseas private investment corporation right trying to deploy us taxpayer money on behalf of both development objectives and climate objectives. You get a higher bang for the buck often from a climate perspective by financing the closure of an asset, then you do by financing the construction of a new asset. And the way that works is that for example, let's just take for the example of South Africa really quickly right here right. It has a heavily indebted public utility called escom 92% of its of its power comes from comes from comes from coal. But it has a incredibly high carrying cost for its debt, you know, very, very high debt levels. And so the question here is, is South Africa willing to accept lower cost refinancing to assume some of that debt in return for a public commitment to begin a expedited transition away from coal. And that's an ongoing conversation that we're having. It's a great conversation and I don't want to go down the rabbit hole with you on this but I do want to ask you how you think I'm trying to get you to be very specific here Biden administration deals with something like that closure of coal. We're talking about jobs in Pennsylvania in Ohio in Montana in all across this country, fracking and the fossil you may you may say that this is this is now the alternative internet, but it's still the baseline energy and we're going to get into a little bit of politics a little bit later in this conversation but politics still matter. I mean, you know, we're not exactly a ground swell here country is very supportive of this. The Biden get in the positions is the Biden administration get in the position of shutting down these industries and how does it manage the people in the politics it does. Yeah, so it's very clear. I mean, let me just let me just be be clear and careful about what I'm saying here I think there is a financial there are financial ways of doing this which which provide the incentives and the compensation for these types of activities the markets shut these things down. Well, I mean that's happening already right we've seen more cold closure under Trump than we saw under Obama right and that's and that's that is a pure market market driven mechanism. So the question is how do you move that faster. And you know take for example the European Union, they have a very very clear and enlarge what they call just transition fund, which is available to member states within the EU, who are prepared to take steps like this. Right so it's essentially a public support for that transition, because there's an understanding that the climate benefits of that transition require and merit some additional public support. And and that's that's you know I was on a call this morning regarding how to deploy that most effectively in Poland which is in the midst of a similar conversation about how do they transition more quickly away from cold. Biden has talked about a $2 trillion accelerated investment right infrastructure in the auto industry and all across. Is that money really there john and how quickly will that be deployed how much of a difference does that make. I look the question of whether the money is there will be a question of a number of things including what happens in Georgia in early in early January, January, but, but whether it's 2 trillion or 1.5 trillion, or the 900 billion that's being you know discussed right now. There will be significant amounts of money and there will be a question of how that money is deployed. And there's big leverage by by being by having the White House and the Treasury, in terms of setting the priorities for how those funds will be will be spent. I am optimistic, perhaps more than I should be that there will be less resistance to a greening of that package, then they're, then there might, then the politics of climate change in the US might suggest there should be. Why is that because I think increasingly people do see that the transition again to a low carbon economy is occurring and that this is a comparative and competitive advantage for the US to be leading that as opposed to be falling behind. That is a very, very important point to make over and over and over again this is not just about tree hugging trees and putting in solar panels this is about keeping America out front and inventing the next layer of jobs and employment and invention and science and everything else that this country needs to be to be competitive. I want to go over with a few for a few minutes and then I want to invite the audience questions we're getting a few and if you're in the audience now and you've got a question for john about the future of the Biden administration and said climate change agenda please put that in into your chat and we'll get to as many as we can in just a few minutes. I said I wanted to circle back on the question of environmental justice and equity which is something that has been a theme in the Biden and Biden announcements of the team. What is that likely to entail from a policy perspective, john. You've been there you've been in the situation you've been elsewhere if we were to bring in to the highest levels of this government, a serious commitment to environmental justice. What does that change. Well that's interesting I thought you were going to say what does it look like so but what is it, what does it change I think it changes the politics of the, of the stakeholders and people who are who see climate and climate response and climate action as something serving them and in their best interest I think for too long the environmental movement writ large has been has not taken into consideration, frankly the day to day lives of people who are most affected by climate change it tends to operate at a high level you have to do it to tons of CO2 emitted or avoided. And I think what President like Biden and vice president like Harris are saying is that there are people behind these, these trends and these, and these dynamics with climate, whose interests need to be specifically addressed and discussed it kind of gets back to the conversation. Climate change is affecting people's lives today. Air pollution is affecting people's lives today that affects their neighborhoods it affects their, their children's health. And I think the appointment of a couple of key people that we've seen recently, specifically DPA and an interior signifies that Biden is taking this commitment to, to, to climate justice and racial equity seriously and seeing it as part of his, let me give you let me give you two examples of where this might play and ask you how you think that actually would play out in administration with leadership like this. When we talk about plastic pollution. A lot of people will think about plastic flowing down rivers and waterways and in the ocean. Other people will think about where the refinery is located, and the communities of color disproportionately that are affected by the pollution and the air and the toxins that are associated with that. One of the things we're doing in association with the global futures lab and public broadcasting as we have a series now called planet forward it's on peril and promise you can see it. And we're going to be featuring and profiling a man by the name of Henry red cloud next month. The red cloud is started Lakota solar is on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and he's working with tribes across America to bring renewable energy to people who disproportionately don't even have electricity. They don't have running water in many cases. How does this administration focused on climate justice address issues like that is it investing is it shutting plants down. What actually happens. The, the, the, the, the glib answer is, we're, we're going to see, we're going to see how they, how they, how they address that issue I mean he's put together, you know, the president like has put together a, a kind of high level plan for what addressing environmental justice looks like that you know is on, on, on his, on his website. But I think this will be this will be Frank a a this will be for example, one of the benefits of the new structure that they're putting in place and having Gina McCarthy and kind of helping coordinate across agencies on these issues and specifically keeping that issue of racial equity and climate justice as a top priority will be one of their top priorities and it hasn't to your point it hasn't been done before. Right. It hasn't been done. What I imagine it will look like is that I imagine it will look like. Hearing from the voices of affected communities on a much more regular basis and building into policy decisions and regulatory decisions. Considerations for how neighborhoods communities and, and, and workers are affected. Again, this is not necessarily been something that the climate policies has focused on within the White House. It's not under the latter years of the Obama administration. So I guess that I guess the unsatisfactory answers, I don't exactly know what it will look like. But the fact is that they're putting the right people together and with the right intentions and I think that's going to, you know, bear bear quick fruit. You know, politics here was just for a moment. I know your favorite subject right, but you know a national survey by Pew a couple of months ago was back in April, I think, found that 65% of the response to this particular poll. Presumably we can still believe in polls by the way, said that the federal government was doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change. Many in the land, governors state legislatures certainly in Washington Republicans and others are going to resist this. So what do you look for here and how does that equation get changed, or does it. I think that what we're going to see. And what we have seen is a quiet, but, but, but seismic shift with respect to how the economy is moving and how it's even currently structured. That is changing how people think not necessarily about climate change, but about the, but about industrial decision decisions of corporations and industries as they as they are related to climate change what do I mean by that. I give a series of talks in in in kind of rural and rural parts of the middle of the country as part of outreach that I do through the Atlantic Council, and you know I was in both Kansas and Iowa just prior to coven coming online. Those two states have seen the penetration of wind power in their in their states go from about 5% to close to 40% over the last eight years. So that's a that's a dramatic shift, which occurred in a relatively short period of time, not because the residents of either of those two states woke up one morning and said we are now you know tree hugging climate believers but because they realize that that renewable energy was the cheaper alternative. We're seeing the same thing in sector after sector as lower carbon alternatives are the job creation vehicle for communities. And so I think that is the that will be the thing that pushes the politics more than more than anything else. I think this has been compelling for at least a decade and it and it doesn't seem to necessarily be moving the needle significantly in terms of political action at least in Washington, I think it's going to be the economics that moves it. And that's, you know, that's, that's an on one way a disappointing, you know, outcome on the other hand, I'll take it and completely inevitable and explicable. Okay, we have lots of questions. I'm going to get to those in just a minute one last one for you quickly before we do that you were at the National Security Council your focus was, you know, climate change around the world. How quickly will the United States will Biden take the United States back into the Paris climate accord. And what impact will that have internationally. And so I mean the answer is he'll, he'll, he'll state his intention to re enter the Paris court I think on day one, and it's a 30 day process to re enter so you know, will, you know, the US will be back in, you know, by the end of by the end of February the question is what does that mean what it, what it, you know, what is that, what are the implications of that the immediate implication of that is that the US will be on the on the hook for developing what's called a nationally determined emission, which is the our submission to the international community for how quickly, and in what order, Frank to your earlier question, we are going to increase our emissions reductions. So that process the creation of that NDC is going to be a top priority between the agencies. It's going to be a question of moving dials. And that's something that we will present the US will present John Kerry will likely present it in Glasgow in November of 20 of 2021 to the international climate talks. I think the bigger implication of rejoining Paris is that it's a signal that the US is recommitting itself to prioritizing climate change. It's a very very strong signal I think to international partners that climate change is going to be, you know, a top issue in every conversation that the president has with counterparts let me just talk about what the power of that is. During the final two years of the Obama administration climate change was issue number one or two on every single bilateral meeting that the president had with foreign leaders. Really, every one of them, every one of them. I mean, literally, everyone, small island developing states care about it for one reason, India has a very different you know, the conversation may have been slightly different with different nuances, but climate change and the fact that the US was focused on it. And the fact that US wanted other countries to increase their ambition was a top priority in every bilateral agreement. So the preparation for a head of state bilateral meeting, you know, it takes months. The entire bureaucracy is mobilized. It has a real impact on other countries when the US is pushing the issue and I think that will be an important and unseen side effect of rejoining Paris and committing. I just want to echo that you know having having been a reporter having been a journalist at the White House for a long time. When a head of state when the president United States goes to a meeting the Sherpas and all the prep and all the bureaucracy gears up and there are questions that get asked and answered, and there are deadlines and deliverables, and it's a big deal but it's not just the president going to a meeting so where you know that is going to be a fascinating the thing to watch, especially given the events of the past several years with extreme weather and sea level rise and all the rest. And that we've been seeing okay, lots of questions here so let's see if we can get to as many as possible. Let's start I'm just going to start. This is the Biden administration this is questions from from our from our wonderful audience. How will the Biden administration you think work with universities and NGOs to rebuild the infrastructure for scientific input into climate policy. What are the opportunities and challenges there. It's a great. It's a great question. The, you know, the damage that has been done over the last several years to kind of fact based, you know, research, and, and, and it's conduit into the policy and decision making process I think has been the topic of a conversation I was having yesterday with with with John Podesta, there is a there is a need for the federal government to both support, and then make use of the data the science that are coming out of institutions like ASU. And I guess I would just say that you know, having for example, the person like a John Holdren, who was the head of the OSTP office, you know, in within the White House, science technology policy policy exactly having someone at that at that level who has connections to academia and the science community I think will be important as part of that process that that person has not yet been named. Is that on more research funding available. I would I mean we're dealing now with a pretty constrained fiscal environment in some ways. In some ways it's quite open but in other ways there's going to be a lot of competing pressures for it. So, but absolutely, I would imagine this will be a top priority. I have a question from the audience, many energy, many energy folks considered nuclear a renewable source, disregarding the question of rights problems of waste disposal and theft for weapons development. Do you think nuclear is renewable. I think nuclear is renewable. I think and but and but I think that its role in the 2050 scenario and the kind of future energy mix not just for the US but the, but the world is one of those pretty significant dials that needs to be carefully considered and I'm not I'm not leading against nuclear I'm merely suggesting that if there are ways of us achieving net zero that do not involve nuclear, I think they are preferred. And for a number of reasons that we probably don't have time to go into. Okay. Well we'll come back we can do another one with will do another nuclear conversation another time if you'd like. One though I do want to keep going because there's so many really excellent questions. This is this is interesting the IPCC said in in 2018 that we need to cut emissions in half by 2030 and down to net zero by 2050 we talked about buttons net zero or, you know, carbon neutral thing. Yeah, the writer continues I can't fathom how we can get there with fossil fuel companies existing as they do now. What needs to happen to the fossil fuel industry in your view to meet these IPCC targets is public ownership and winding down an answer. That's a great question that it gets back to that question kind of gets back to the question of how do you how do you phase out coal more quickly and you know is there are there are there kind of essentially buyouts that need to occur. And you know Germany for example just just just let a reverse auction to take out 4.7 gigawatts of coal capacity. In this grid Poland's considering the same, the same, the same metric, or the same process. I think that you know in Biden has said but by 2035, the US electricity sector should be 100% clean and renewable. So this is not a this is not a, you know, a conceptual question this is one that again the team will be working extremely hard on as part of the these these these MDCs nationally determine contributions. I think that if I were an oil and gas executive, or a heavy investor in oil and gas stocks and companies right now. I would be taking a very hard look at my business model in the first case, and my holdings in the second case. One thing we haven't talked about here. Frank is the financial markets and how they are evolving and beginning to kind of really think of that for just a second because you are deep into that and that is hugely important. I mean look, the financial markets when they tip right more as we've seen in history, financial markets tend to tend to be a bit lemming like and they move they move they move quickly and in with a herd mentality. And I think we're nearing a tipping point with respect to how financial institutions treat climate risk and climate exposure, some of that has been much of that has been at the at the urging of activist groups and NGOs over the last 10 years. What we're beginning to see now is even the the regulators and the big money managers are saying climate change is a risk that needs to be factored into our asset allocation decisions. I mean Larry Fink at BlackRock the world's largest asset manager said in January that climate change poses a systemic risk to the global economy and that they need to begin factoring climate change more carefully into how they allocate their capital. So in CFTC the commodity futures trading corporate commission said said the same thing recently, and then the Fed, two days ago, just joined an international network for, you know, for greening the financial institutions. All of these big regulators are now seeing climate as a risk which needs to be priced into our financial system. This is a very thoughtful question. California is considered best in class with respect to renewable power slash energy yet experiences rolling blackouts each summer in the peak of high temperatures. How do we have power that works consistently in this, in this situation. I mean you need you need one of the words we haven't talked about yet here is resilience. And what does resilience mean it means that you you have infrastructure that is resilient to the effects of climate change and so one of the things that we need to do as we build back better in this in this next set of federal federal spending is we need to build building infrastructure which is resilient to the very change and the very climate change that is that that is forcing these investments in the in the first place. That means hardening that the word is often use hardening of grids of national infrastructure, ensuring that our, our infrastructure can withstand increasing climate variability temperature variability. There are strong natural, you know disaster events floods, etc. There is a way of doing that and building back that is much more resilient than our current infrastructure is. And again that's that'll be part of how the US needs to think about, not just meeting its climate commitments but meeting its infrastructure needs over the next 20 years. John just a couple minutes left but but here's another one from from the audience which I think is very important yesterday was a historical transition for federally recognized tribal nations with Deb Hans nomination to be interior secretary. What the question is what are some potential spaces slash collaborations to address the energy transition and justice for tribes. Yeah, so I mean the obvious, the obvious answer to that and maybe it's too obvious is that you know, Native American peoples, you know occupy large tracks of land in this country which have historically getting back to the environmental justice point Frank from earlier, you know, happened to house lots of dirty, you know dirty energy throughout the country. Wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be a nice change if in fact we were supporting investment into clean energy, you know on tribal lands with, you know, as part of a, as part of a, you know and agreed upon a plan of deployment with with with tribal nations. I think that's something that has been discussed in. Well I know that something has been discussed, but I think could be a part of what of where we where we go next with with Deb Helen that at interior. So that I think that is that that's probably the easiest answer to what that might look like. You know, I said that was going to be the last question from the audience and I was going to ask one more and then we'll wrap but I lied, because there's a great one here from the audience that I that I that I have to ask. You've worked at the National Security Council you've worked in the White House you've worked at OPEC you've gone all over the world, you look at this thing from such a gigantic, you know, that's a wonderful gigantic lens, but this question from from one of our participants, as an average citizen. What can I do to help climate change other than the well known things I already do. What do you tell people when they ask you that. It's, I mean, look, this is the question that, first of all, keep asking yourself the question I asked myself the question every day am I doing, am I doing enough, am I doing, you know, I challenge myself and frankly my two children challenged me more and push us, you know, push us further in the right direction with respect to purchasing habits and, you know, we, we, we took our 401k and and took, you know, emptied it of all fossil fuel stocks last last last December, by the way that's not easy. That's not easy to do. Think about your investment and how's it doing since by the way. I mean, better. I mean, if you had if you had not had oil and gas stocks for the last 10 years you would have been doing much better right then, then, then if you if you had them. So, average citizen. Yeah, average citizen is, I mean, first of all, it sounds it sounds, you know, corny, but you got to you got to vote you got to vote with with with climate change as a as a key as a key feature of what you're what you're doing. You have to try to affect change at your neighborhood level, you know, get involved with get get involved with community efforts to, you know, to, to, to, to, to improve the sustainability of your of your community. All these things are connected I think corporations are now taking their cue from consumers in a way that they weren't five or 10 years ago with respect to, you know, to climate change so I mean I could run through a list of things you know make sure the next car you buy as an EV if you can put solar on your roof, you know, eat a little bit less meat. You know, those are, those are things that we all ought to be doing anyway. But I think the big thing is to make sure that this is a decision that you're, you're pushing through your, your, your voting in your and in your local community. Okay, I'm going to end with this one with you. As Peter Schlosser indicated at the beginning of our conversation here the role in the mission of the global futures laboratory, and so many, right, is to confront major challenges, confront major challenges with the imagination transdisciplinary thinking I mean that's what global futures lab certainly tries to do. And if there's anything that calls for that approach. It's the challenge of climate change. But that can't only come from government it's not going to just come from government by the administration not withstanding. So how can places like the global futures lab universities, ordinary people, workplaces help drive this with a national government that's actually engaged in it. It's a great way to end and let me just say, I think the answer is relatively simple. You can inspire the current and importantly the next generation of young people to understand that the climate challenge while daunting and existential also provides a tremendous springboard and opportunity for their careers for your careers of young people entering the market today. And if young people entering the workforce today make decisions about where they work based upon a set of considerations around sustainability and climate change. That has a seismic and very quick impact on the direction of how corporations work. For too long I think we have have, you know, have not factored climate change into how we, what types of careers we pursue, and the status quo is simply not an option anymore from up from a climate perspective. I think, you know, ASU, the global futures lab can inspire young people to commit to following career paths that place a high priority on climate action, and on designing a more sustainable and durable and clean future for the, for the globe. And I hope that that's, I hope that that's something that the global futures lab does and it sounds like it's, it's very much committed to that. To impact driven research and to capturing it and telling the stories around it that can be inspiring both to the experts and to young folks. Well, I'm going to let you leave us with sort of a one liner. If you're looking to see whether the administration is successful with all these promises. What's the first and most important thing you're looking for. Frank that's a very hard way to, way to end I'm a one line about that. I mean, look, I think I'm going to I'm going to punt on the question and just say what he has done already in terms of the nominations take a look if you haven't yet take a look on at the team that he's put together. Look at the faces look at the backgrounds look at the biographies and look at how each one of those people coming into or nominated for top positions cabinet level positions across various agencies, agriculture, transportation, Treasury interior, EPA, have all talked about climate change in their acceptance in their in their thanks for the nomination speech. This is not a side issue it's front and center this has never happened before. That's an exciting moment. Thank you so much for your time today and for your insight and for all you do and good luck with what you're doing because it matters on many many levels. Thank you very much right. It's a pleasure. Let me hand it back over to Jason friends now he's going to tell you how you can access this conversation share it. Jason over to you. Alright Frank says no and john Morton thank you so very much for this wonderful conversation. We will be having this conversation posted on our social media channels through Facebook, Twitter and across other platforms, along with our partners over at the board, and across multiple issue programs in the next day or so so please look for that and I encourage you to share it with as many people as possible so that they can learn more about what this next four years may bring in terms of climate action, as well as what we can individually do for this insight that we've received from Mr Morton. Thank you very much to both of you thank you very much to our audience and for all the great questions and we hope you have a great weekend and good holiday season. Thank you.