Biden Administration climate czar, Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, spoke about the need to pursue net zero emissions and movement away from fossil fuels Monday at a Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) event.
Podesta discussed the ways in which he expects the 2024 presidential election to impact climate policy, declaring “climate is on the ballot, there is no question about that.” Podesta stated, “the leadership that President Biden has provided, his selection of Secretary Kerry to represent from the get-go, the United States in international negotiations, all that is reversible. The last president took us out of Paris, has pledged to do so again.”
Podesta also outlined what the ultimate goal would be for the environmental policies from the left. “The President’s goal that he set for the United States of cutting emissions by 50 to 52 percent put us on that path towards transitioning away from fossil fuels, particularly unabated use of fossil fuels in the power sector,” Podesta stated. “But more broadly, we’re on a path to try to get to net zero. That is dictated by the science, it’s indicated by the extreme weather that we’re feeling across the globe, and we’re on that path.”
Podesta credited the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) with being able to “drive that cycle of innovation that drives the cost of clean energy down.” Podesta also claimed, “for every ton of carbon we remove or reduce in the United States, there will be 2.6 tons reduced outside of the United States.”
Podesta also discussed additional benchmarks that the U.S. has set in order to achieve that particular net zero goal. Podesta argued that transitioning away from fossil fuels required “pedal to the metal on deploying zero source carbon. That’s why we're for tripling renewables by 2030, that’s why we’re for tripling nuclear by 2050, that’s why we’re for doubling efficiency by 2030.”
“To try to get this project right is an enormous challenge,” Podesta added. Podesta said the endeavor is “the largest transformation of the global economy on a size and scale that has ever occurred in human history,” deeming it “a pretty awesome project.”
The “pretty awesome project,” as Podesta describes it, will likely not only produce the transformation of the global economy, but also radically reshape life according to the left’s environmental precepts.