MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The United Nations annual climate conference - COP29, as it is known - it has wrapped. The goal was to raise money from wealthier countries to help developing nations cut climate pollution and prepare for threats from climate change. Those who gathered reached a deal, though not everyone is happy about it. And there was a specific kind of urgency this year with Donald Trump poised to return to the White House. He has promised to withdraw from collective climate action efforts and to boost fossil fuel production. Well, at the opening of the conference, U.S. climate envoy John Podesta tried to head off concerns. He promised, quote, "the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States," which prompts an obvious question - how? John Podesta, welcome.
JOHN PODESTA: Oh, it's good to be with you, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So this deal that you all reached, which I keep seeing everywhere described as controversial - I guess developing nations were hoping for a lot more climate money than they ultimately got. The deal that was reached is $300 billion annually. They were hoping for $1.3 trillion, which, by the way, is the amount that researchers say is required. Are you satisfied, John Podesta, with where this landed?
PODESTA: I think this landed actually in a very good place. I think the parties recognized that the goal of $1.3 trillion was real. That's what is necessary by 2035. But the question really before the conference was, what was the level of public support? We went in with a commitment of $100 billion a year and came out with a commitment of $300 billion a year. That's a significant step change and one that I think traditional donor countries all agreed to. But I think, significantly, it also opened up the potential for other countries who are capable of providing climate finance to the developing countries, and particularly the poorest countries, to be able to participate in meeting the needs of those countries.
KELLY: I guess I'm trying to square, though, you're telling me you think this landed in a good place, but it's 1 trillion - trillion with a T - dollars less than climate experts say is necessary to handle the problem. I mean, this is likely to be the hottest year on record.
PODESTA: I think if you look at...
KELLY: Yeah.
PODESTA: ...A recent most definitive report that was done by Nick Stern and Miss Songwe from Africa, they said what was needed was $1.3 trillion, but in order to get to 1.3, they needed $300 billion of public support. And I think most of the parties actually recognized that when it came to public resources, that that number was at the ambitious edge of what could be provided through public resources. Now, that has to go to work to stimulate the private-sector investment that comes along with it.
KELLY: Well, and that's my next question, which is the matter of where exactly the money that has been committed will come from. And you're talking about a combination of public funding, but that private sources will need to be mobilized - institutions like the World Bank, the IMF. Is that realistic? I mean, can you provide hand-over-heart reassurance to the countries that need this money that they're actually going to get it?
PODESTA: Well, that takes political will, but I think there was political will that was present in this COP. You know, when President Biden came into office, there - we were doing on a bilateral level about $1.5 billion worth of climate assistance to - mostly to the poorest countries around the world, in development assistance. He made a pledge in 2021 to raise that to $11 billion. I was with him in the Amazon just last week, in which he said that we have now met that $11 billion goal. So that was ambitious, but we made it. And I think that we're seeing countries step up with more funding to support the most vulnerable. And of course, that's the great irony of climate change, which is the people who contribute the least to the problem get hit the hardest by the effects.
KELLY: Indeed. Let me turn you to the situation, John Podesta, here in the U.S. I quoted you saying the work to contain climate change is going to continue here in the States. How do we square that with President-elect Trump's plans to hollow out the EPA - the Environmental Protection Agency - push out nonpartisan civil servants, replace them with political appointees. Can he do that? And what are the implications?
PODESTA: Well, look, I noted it when I got to Baku, that the results of the election for climate activists were bitterly disappointing because we've reelected a president's (ph) climate change is a hoax and wants to go backwards. But, quite frankly, I think the United States is going to go forward. The $450 billion worth of clean energy investments that are being made all across the country - north, south, east and west, many of them in Republican districts - are going to go forward.
KELLY: These are provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that you're talking about?
PODESTA: Yeah. They're private-sector investments that were stimulated and enabled by the tax support that was in the Inflation Reduction Act. I think those companies are committed to building out clean power. I think the United States might slow down a little bit over the next four years as a result of the actions that the next administration will no doubt take, but I think the direction is clear. We'll continue, in fact, to reduce emissions, even under President Trump, but I think that...
KELLY: I mean, can that coexist with "drill, baby, drill" - with Trump's stated intention to expand fossil fuel production?
PODESTA: Look, I think that you've got to look at what's happening in the market. And I think if you look at what the utilities are doing, they're investing in clean power. If you look at what the automakers are doing, they're transitioning to electric vehicles. And I think they'll do that because they know that's the direction the world is taking us.
KELLY: Anything you like in Trump's climate agenda?
PODESTA: (Laughter) Well, there's very little, but I would say that, you know, there are a few technologies that I think he will continue to embrace that we've been for. So I don't think this election was about climate change, but it certainly will affect the commitment and the pace. But there are states across the country, there are cities across the country, including in red states, that are going to continue to push policy that will help the country reduce its emissions. There are private-sector actors that have pledged to do so as well. I think all that work will continue.
KELLY: John Podesta is President Biden's senior adviser for international climate policy, just back from the United Nations annual climate conference in Baku. Thank you, John Podesta.
PODESTA: Thanks for having me on.
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