John Podesta served in the White House as counselor in charge of climate and energy policy during President Barack Obama’s second term. He has no desire to reprise his role in the Biden administration, but in an interview he still has some advice for the incoming team. “The key is setting the right destination. That’s why these net-zero [emissions] commitments are so crucial,” Podesta said, in a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg Green ahead of the election. “I’m leaving it to the younger set, let’s put it that way.”
What’s changed since you left the White House in 2015?
The most important thing that’s changed is the politics. People thought climate change was a problem when Obama was first elected in 2008. They were generally in favor of investment in clean energy, energy efficiency, and the attendant things one needs to get emissions down. It wasn’t a top-tier issue for most people. That’s changed.
They now know that extreme weather and other effects, like rising sea levels, are going to undermine their security and wellbeing. Just over the course of the primaries and into the general you saw how much Biden leaned into this question, and made it central to his plan to recover from the Covid-induced recession.
Why do czars draw so much interest? What’s a “climate czar” anyway?
Accountability and ambition need to be organized, and come from the president himself. You need structures in the White House to organize the whole of government, to tackle this both domestically and internationally. Going back to 1993, I saw the success of creating the National Economic Council and the ability to get much better economic decision-making. You had a cabinet-level group of people, who were thinking through how to move the economy forward. I’m an advocate for doing the same thing for climate and energy.