White House National Climate Advisor aims to cut U.S. emissions

As a part of Yahoo Finance’s special climate week coverage reporter, Akiko Fujita spoke with White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy on the White House's upcoming climate summit, cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, as well as President Biden's infrastructure bill and competition from China.

Video transcript

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AKIKO FUJITA: Gina McCarthy, thank you so much for joining us today. You've got a busy week ahead of you, a two-day Climate Leaders Summit although virtually, 40 leaders gathered here. What are you hoping to accomplish in these two days?

GINA MCCARTHY: Well, first of all, thanks for having me here, and happy Earth week. I think if-- if folks recall, President Biden his first day actually rejoined the Paris Accord. And so that means we're back in the international arena wanting to make sure we work as a world to address the challenge of climate change.

And the Leaders Summit is really an outgrowth of that commitment. It's basically bringing the world together. We want the president to be able to announce a-- what we call a nationally determined contribution, which is how much the US expects to achieve in terms of greenhouse gas reductions by 2030. We have an announcement the president is going to make at the Leaders Summit so that we can show the world leaders that we are serious about our commitment to address climate change.

And we want to talk to them about how we all look to strengthen our efforts moving forward as we await Glasgow in November because science tells us that we have a bigger challenge than we recognized when Paris was-- was actually completed. And we have to start looking at how we move forward not just as countries, separate countries, but as the world to address the challenge of climate change.

AKIKO FUJITA: We've heard the president say that the US is back in the game in this conversation. But you've got a lot of skeptics outside of the US who question how serious the US is in its commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, especially over the last-- after the last four years. How aggressively is the US looking to move on this emissions cut by the end of this decade?

GINA MCCARTHY: We do know that this decade is going to be pivotal for the world to actually make the kind of commitment that-- that the science-- science is telling us is necessary. And as you know, the president put out a couple of opportunities for us to really show how committed we are. The first was the American Rescue Plan, which actually said we're going to get ourselves out of this pandemic. And it's-- it's successfully beginning to make sure that people are getting hope again about moving beyond that pandemic so that we can continue to-- to move forward.

And he put out an American jobs plan that actually recognized that climate change is about growing jobs. It is about sustainable infrastructure. It is about billing-- building resiliency. It is about good paying jobs and union jobs. There is no reason to dissect our need to grow out of this pandemic and to grow jobs of the future from the challenge of climate change. In fact, they're one and the same as is the challenge of equity.

We have to make sure that every community and every worker is invested in, and we move forward. Because when President Biden hears the word climate, he thinks jobs. And when he hears jobs, he thinks climate change because clean energy is our future. This is not about sacrificing for the planet. This is about delivering ourselves and our kids a future that is filled with opportunity, a future that's going to be safer and more sustainable and equitable.

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's talk about one of those key initiatives in the infrastructure bill you just alluded to, establishing a clean electricity standard with the goal of making electricity carbon free by 2035. What's the energy mix that gets you there?

GINA MCCARTHY: Well, I think there's-- there's lots of opportunities to get us there. But we know that there's a transition from fossil fuel to clean energy. We know, even in the prior administration, that-- that their interest in rebuilding coal has fallen short because clean energy is cheaper. Clean energy is cleaner. Clean energy helps us clean up the air as well as deliver electricity at prices that people can afford.

So we are going to be investing in a grid infrastructure in our transmission lines so that we can make sure that everybody has access to clean energy, and everybody has resilience in their system, so that the problems we experienced a few months ago in Texas don't get revisited again, which was a cold snap that actually caused many, many people to lose their lives because there was no resilience in the transmission system itself.

So we think there's every opportunity to actually look at a variety of ways of moving forward with clean energy, but also to look at carbon capture and sequestration so that we can make the-- the technologies available to every utility as we move forward. We're looking at nuclear as being part of the mix. The president's interest isn't in taking technology solutions off the table. It's actually investing in technology solutions as we move forward.

AKIKO FUJITA: So when you look at that goal, it sounds like you still see a role for fossil fuels but offsetting that with carbon capture.

GINA MCCARTHY: We do see that the transition is going to take some time. So there is no question that we need to look at carbon capture and sequestration. But we also know that clean energy is winning in the marketplace.

And we're going to continue to advance all those opportunities. The president doesn't want to take things off the table. He wants to invest in what's available today, recognizing that the future will be won by the country that gets to the finish line on clean energy first. And he certainly wants the United States to be that country.

AKIKO FUJITA: The president has packaged this infrastructure bill as a jobs act aimed at investing in the green economy. But there's a lot of communities across the country that hear green economy and see job losses. How do you keep people in their jobs while also transitioning into this new economy that some would argue is still in the very early stages?

GINA MCCARTHY: Well, I don't know whether I would argue that this is in the early stages because clean energy is quite considerable in every region of the country now in terms of its visibility and its competitiveness. But you're right. There are skeptics. But President Biden is basically a jobs and union guy. And he's also a person who cares about fairness and equity.

So he's not just looking at the communities that have been left behind that need benefits. He's also recognizing with his eyes wide open that there has already been a transition. We're looking at areas of our country that have been disinvested in because, for example, in coal country where coal has become less competitive. And those jobs have shrunk. And so the idea is not to deny it but to embrace that challenge and begin to invest in it.

So part of his American Jobs Plan and work we're doing is to develop a strategy that reinvests in those communities. We've already identified $260 million in investments in communities in coal country to put people back to work in their communities with their existing skill set to start closing those old coal mines that have been abandoned in oil and gas well infrastructure that is spewing methane out because it's a double win.

It puts them back to work making the kind of living with the kind of training they already have, plus we're going to actually address the methane emissions that are so dangerous to climate change. But it also has a lot of opportunity in the American Jobs Plan for training opportunities, for apprenticeships, working with our unions to start with that transition.

So we're not going to go into this by denying that there is a transition that's been happening and will continue to happen. But we need to just go into that recognizing that investments to those communities means that we're dealing with this challenge in a proactive and aggressive way. And so we shouldn't have to leave anybody behind. The United States has to be smarter and more creative than that. And so we're doing that, and we have a plan forward. And we're going to move that forward.

AKIKO FUJITA: That pause that you've put in place to issue any new oil and gas leasing on federal lands, how long do you expect that review to take? What does that timeline look like right now?

GINA MCCARTHY: Well, the reason for the lease was that we recognized that there were-- were literally, you know, millions of acres that are being tied up that are nonproductive that are public lands. And we also realize that we haven't for years taken a look at the kind of money that is accrued to those states in those areas where those leases have already been afforded. And we should relook at all of those things.

So we're talking about an opportunity that we've already taken to have a hearing on this issue. This is not about stopping permitting, just leases, recognizing that there's a lot of leases out there that are not being worked where there's no activity. And we're going to be relooking at that in determining how we can restart that lease-- that leasing program in a way that makes sure that, as public lands are tied up, that they're being used productively, but also that the states are being paid a fare revenue from that-- that land that's being occupied.

And so hopefully, that will only be-- we have-- we already did a hearing. We're likely to have a-- a report done very shortly. So we'll be working with folks, keeping everybody in the news. But we're not right now in a shortage of leases. There's plenty of them out there. That's part of the challenge.

AKIKO FUJITA: I wonder how you're thinking about the role of the private sector in getting to that ultimate goal of net zero by 2050. How much of the responsibility should be placed on some of these major firms? And how much of the larger goal here you think would actually require regulation in place, whether that's through disclosures for companies or through carbon taxes to make sure they are held accountable for the emissions?

GINA MCCARTHY: Well, there's no question that we're still going to do our job and establish standards. We do that for-- for health and-- and other benefits. And you're right. The private sector has to be a partner in this. And they have to be able to account for how they invest their money. If it's yours, you'd want it. If it's mine, I want to know that as well.

So we're looking at working with the private sector, not just in the financial risk area, but we're also looking at them so that-- that as the president and as Congress then sends signals about where we think the United States needs to head and how we're going to address the challenge of climate change and where we see the opportunities for job growth, we expect the private sector to respond to that.

We generally see that when-- when government leads, the private sector will take cognizance of that and move. And we expect that the private sector will become a partner in many of these efforts. If not, then you know that we're going to take other actions to make sure that we get where we need to go.

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's talk about the competition with China. On the one hand, you've got the president saying we really want to build out the renewable energy in the US, build out the grid. And yet, when you look at the supply chain, so much of that is-- ties directly to China, whether that's solar energy or battery technology, other technology, green technology. Is there an inherent conflict here between the president saying, on the one hand, we're going to bring American jobs back by building out the green economy when, in reality, a lot of that build-out only increases the US reliance on China?

GINA MCCARTHY: Well, I think the president's understanding is that we can actually restart our manufacturing operations here. And we can recapture the supply chain we had ceded elsewhere not just to China, but other countries. So as he sees it, we can use this as an opportunity to not just rekindle our manufacturing, but to do things like in the electric vehicle infrastructure.

We're looking at working with the auto sector to actually start manufacturing these vehicles right here in the United States, not ceding that manufacturing to other countries. We're looking at investing in the electric vehicle infrastructure so that we'll have the demand for electric vehicles because people will know they can get where they need to go, and they can get back home again in a really high-performing vehicle.

We're looking at investing in battery manufacturing. We have two battery manufacturing plants that are starting up over the next few months that are servicing Ford and GM. Together, that's going to be a magnificent signal that right here in the United States, we're going to start manufacturing the supply chain and grabbing that back.

And, lastly, we've identified a number of states where lithium is available for mining operations. And that's going to be a key for our ability to grab back the battery manufacturing that's necessary not just for electric vehicles, but to grow our battery storage opportunities along transmission lines.

So we have, I think, a goal not just to invest in manufacturing, but to invest in it right here in the United States, and grow those jobs again, and grab back the supply chains we have lost. These are real really wonderful job opportunities. Many of them are already union. We want more because we want people to grow in the middle class again and to recognize that they have every opportunity certainly that-- that my family had to actually make sure that we have a home we can live in, opportunities for home ownership, putting food on your family's tables.

This pandemic has shown us the fragility of people's lives and livelihoods. And we have to respond to that by bringing back hope and opportunity. That's what this president is all about. And we're going to capture those opportunities.

AKIKO FUJITA: Gina McCarthy, White House National Climate Advisor. Thanks so much for your time today.

GINA MCCARTHY: It was great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.