Even Trump Can’t Stop America’s Green Revolution, Biden’s Top Climate Adviser Says.

The second is whether we continue to face many people in the transition. We have over 100,000 farmers and ranchers who are adopting climate smart agriculture practices. Will that climate action, which spreads the weather, continue to grow?

The bottom line is how well we are doing at building the things we need to build. Iron in the ground. One of the things we have been trying to develop as a discipline is professional work in the development of a public license for this new technology so that it can scale. Can we build at the speed we need by making sure that when the tower goes up, the community feels like they’re building a barn together, not like they’ve been replaced?

We have talked about economic and industrial leadership, but political leadership is also important. Trump has indicated that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, for the second time in five years. Wouldn’t that make it more difficult to hit that route you were describing?

Does that one action mean the end of US climate leadership or does it set aside the progress we need to make? No. But it is accompanied by symbolic and perhaps many second-order effects.

Since the start of this administration we have had weather headquarters in the West Wing. A new group. Gina McCarthy led it, now I do. We have senior directors in my team who specialize in all areas of the economy, with backgrounds in science, business, engineering, policy.

What happens if you don’t have that level of focus at a high level with the great commitment of the talented people driving it? What happens when the US shows up on an international forum or bilateral talks and doesn’t prioritize setting the rules of the road for a clean energy economy?

I think what’s happening is sidelining the US and American workers in the race for clean energy jobs, and we’re reducing our power around the world. Not only will the climate slow down over the next four years, our competitors are not slowing down—gaining advantage in clean energy technology, but also impacting the world.

Four years is not a long time. You must have gone into this thinking about the second term. Are you thinking about things you want to do but can’t?

Big things, number one, are sectors where we haven’t reached escape velocity. We have to keep pushing for the sake of our economy. That is unfinished business that needs to be pursued by state and local governments, by the private sector, and hopefully by the federal government.

The second is to make sure we are investing enough in talent and employees. We have a bad habit in this country of promoting talent to the top without investing in institutions that attract many people to work. Unions are at the forefront of that; Biden has spent a lot of time on growing education.