1:59

50% by the end of the decade. There

2:02

was a study out of Princeton University earlier this

2:04

year that estimates that the IRA and its programs

2:06

will help the US cut anywhere from 43 to 48% of

2:10

its missions compared to 2005 by the

2:12

end of the decade. Other estimates

2:15

from places like the Rhodium Group have not been

2:17

as optimistic. So really, no matter where

2:19

you're looking, however you slice it, we are not

2:21

going to hit that 50% through the IRA

2:23

alone.

2:24

I was on Air Force One

2:26

headed out with President Biden to

2:29

do several climate-related

2:31

events, and his top climate

2:33

advisor came back to the press cabin on

2:36

the plane. And he was very

2:39

optimistic. Everybody kept peppering

2:41

him with questions like, but you're

2:43

not going to... And how are you going to... And the

2:46

takeaway was that the Biden White House

2:48

is optimistic about

2:51

private industry, about economic

2:53

forces, about all of these things moving

2:56

the US at an accelerated

2:59

pace at some point before that

3:01

deadline. So should the US be

3:03

optimistic here? Is the Biden administration right about this,

3:05

Nate? I mean, what else do they need to get done

3:07

to reach that 50% number?

3:09

So I mean, there's tons of uncertainties here, right? Like we don't

3:12

know what the cost of oil is going to be in 2040,

3:14

right? So like that's going to play a huge

3:16

factor, whether or not like oil,

3:19

the natural gas is still like a super viable

3:22

energy provider versus renewable energies

3:24

and everything. But truly, I mean, the

3:26

thing that I think, when I talk to

3:28

people about kind of this investment that the federal government

3:30

is putting into renewable energy and addressing climate

3:33

change, a lot of the folks I talked to say,

3:35

look, when you see large market,

3:38

like economy-wide shifts happen,

3:40

it has to happen through help with

3:42

the federal government, right? The federal government through the

3:44

Biden administration right now is signaling that hey,

3:46

we are serious about climate change. We're serious

3:49

about addressing its causes. We're serious about

3:51

addressing steps that need to be

3:53

taken to try to mitigate the climate change that's already

3:55

occurred because a lot of it already has happened. And

3:58

so this is a big signal to private. industry that, hey,

4:00

the federal government is putting money into this. You

4:03

should put your money into it too. And we're seeing that. I

4:05

mean, there's a solar manufacturing plant that was built

4:07

in Dalton, Georgia, in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district

4:10

for $3 billion. So that's $3 billion of

4:12

private investment that have gone towards,

4:15

you know, trying to meet some of these goals that the Biden administration

4:18

has made.

4:19

And Tim, let's get into the politics of this too.

4:22

Tons of manufacturing jobs, clean energy jobs coming

4:24

from this legislation as well in all corners

4:26

of the country to Nate's point. And this

4:28

is something that Biden actually kind of talks

4:30

about more when he's talking about the IRA

4:33

on the trail. He sort of talks about it as a jobs

4:35

bill. But I'm curious, I mean, you've been traveling

4:37

with him, you've been on the road. How

4:40

has he talked about his climate efforts,

4:42

you know, in the past couple of months? Has there been a shift? Is

4:44

he changing his language from place to place? How

4:46

does that look? So the thing about the Inflation Reduction

4:48

Act is it does a lot of stuff.

4:51

Yes, it is the biggest climate

4:53

investment that the US has ever made. It

4:56

is also a bill to lower prescription

4:58

drug prices. And it is,

5:01

you know, also a bill, like it does

5:03

a lot of different things. It

5:06

is called the Inflation Reduction Act. It

5:08

doesn't technically lower inflation,

5:10

but it does many other things that

5:13

are not advertised in the name of the bill. And

5:15

so depending on where President Biden is,

5:17

he's talking about it as the greatest jobs creating

5:19

legislation ever. Or he's talking

5:21

about it as this really important investment

5:24

in, you know, America's climate

5:26

future. Or he's talking about it

5:29

lowering the cost of insulin for seniors. So

5:32

it really just depends on which event you're

5:34

at, whether he's selling it hard as a climate

5:36

investment. And the other thing I will say is that

5:39

it sort of depends on

5:41

which Democratic constituency group

5:43

he's talking to and who he's

5:46

trying to appeal to in that moment. But

5:48

what you've seen is a, and I hate to

5:50

use a White House word here, but a pretty regular

5:53

cadence of a rotation

5:56

of Biden messaging events between

5:58

talking about low-income and lowering costs, talking

6:01

about creating jobs, talking about

6:03

infrastructure, and then talking about

6:05

climate. And when

6:07

you pass a giant piece of legislation,

6:10

you can spend a lot of time cutting

6:12

ribbons and announcing new programs.

6:14

And that's exactly what they're doing. Right. They

6:17

definitely want to hype this up, and they have been since it passed.

6:20

But the other thing that we talked about,

6:21

and to your point earlier, Tam, on who they're targeting

6:23

as this messaging goes out, there

6:25

are folks who are particularly concerned about climate.

6:28

Some of the folks who have issued younger voters in particular are very

6:31

fired up about climate change, voting on climate

6:33

change. These are folks who are critical

6:35

to Biden's coalition in the 2020 election if he's

6:37

going to get reelected in 2024. And

6:41

not everyone here is 100% on

6:43

board with what Biden has accomplished on

6:46

the climate front. There are definitely concerns

6:48

about a broken promise that he made during the election

6:50

in 2020, and that was to end fossil

6:53

fuel drilling on federal lands. Take a listen

6:55

to what he said in a debate.

6:56

Number one, no more subsidies for fossil

6:59

fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands,

7:01

no more drilling, including offshore.

7:04

No ability for the oil industry to continue

7:06

to drill, period. Ends.

7:09

Number one. So that promise wasn't

7:12

exactly kept. Well, if

7:14

the word no is what you're focused on,

7:17

then correct. Because they have

7:19

approved numerous controversial

7:23

permits. The White House position

7:25

has generally been, well, our hands were

7:27

tied legally. Yeah.

7:29

Yeah. I mean, the Biden administration has definitely

7:31

said, like, look, we said we were

7:33

going to do this, but the reality is something

7:36

different. And that's partly because of, yes, the courts.

7:38

I mean, I think it was 14 oil and gas

7:40

producing states, Republican led states, sued

7:43

the Biden administration basically saying that you still

7:45

need to be able to do oil and

7:47

gas drilling and leasing, right? And

7:49

they've done that. And frankly, I mean, one of the things that

7:51

I think gets overlooked here is that, like, when

7:53

you look at the actual language of the Inflation Reduction

7:56

Act, it explicitly says that the US

7:58

must continue to do oil. oil and gas lease

8:00

sales. So that was part of the

8:02

deal to get this through with Senator Joe

8:05

Manchin. So because of that,

8:07

we've seen the Biden administration approve things like

8:09

the Mountain Valley pipeline, which would carry natural gas

8:11

out of West Virginia. Senator Joe Manchin state,

8:14

um, but I administration approved the Willow project,

8:16

a massive oil development in Alaska.

8:19

That was super, super controversial. And

8:21

that's part of the reason that, you know, like a couple of weeks ago, we saw

8:23

tens of thousands of people marching in New York

8:26

during the UN general assembly

8:28

demanding that Biden do more to stop warming, saying

8:30

he's not doing enough. And then, you know,

8:32

a week later, what do we see? The city gets walloped

8:35

by this massive storm and flooding that

8:37

caused all sorts of destruction in,

8:39

in Brooklyn.

8:40

Yeah. And, and there have been some

8:43

efforts I should point out, like since, um, you

8:45

know, this criticism has come obviously after the IRA

8:48

was passed, there are folks who still have things

8:50

that they want the Biden administration to push forward on,

8:52

uh, and at the same time, there are some other

8:54

things that the Biden White House has put forward.

8:56

There are some federal lands protections. Uh,

8:58

he recently created the climate core service

9:01

organization. So there are

9:02

some other things that are also kind of common,

9:04

right? Climate core part of the inflation

9:06

reduction act. Climate core, right. For sure. And, and look,

9:08

the climate core is like, I did a story on this

9:10

a couple of years ago when it was something that they were talking

9:12

about doing a much larger version of, uh, that

9:15

they were not able to get through Congress. And I mean, I,

9:17

we talked to people that voted for Donald Trump who

9:20

were like, I would love to see a climate core created

9:22

because there is a need in this country for

9:24

jobs programs for young people. And,

9:27

you know, there's a cool history there of the, of the

9:29

conservation core being a

9:31

big economic

9:32

driver in the 1930s. All

9:34

right. Time for a quick break and we'll be back in a second.

9:37

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10:33

I'm glad you said that, because

10:35

nobody says that. Can I just say thank

10:37

you to you for such a thoughtful interview?

10:40

Oh my God, yeah, I think you nailed

10:42

it. Bullseye, interviews with

10:44

creators you love and creators you need

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to know. Listen to the Bullseye podcast

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only from NPR and Maximum

10:51

Fun.

10:53

And we're back. Nate, let's talk extreme

10:56

weather. We've seen so many more wildfires,

10:59

floods at a very intense level.

11:02

How is the US doing at building

11:04

resilience?

11:05

The US has experienced $23

11:08

billion disasters just this year,

11:10

and that's 23 disasters alone, single

11:12

disasters, that caused at least a

11:15

billion dollars in damage. And I say at least because

11:17

in some cases it's much more. So, you know, we're

11:19

talking about the wildfires in Hawaii, right,

11:21

that devastated the town of Lahaina. The

11:23

flooding that happened out here in California this winter

11:25

and spring, which caused a lake to

11:27

reemerge in California's Central Valley,

11:29

your hometown. Tam, some

11:32

of the places there. Oh my God.

11:33

A lake that was only legend

11:35

in my childhood, yeah.

11:36

Totally, yeah, Tulare Lake, it's back. You

11:39

know, we've seen severe storms in the Northeast, the Midwest,

11:41

the Heartland, and a lot of these extreme

11:43

weather events that cause these damages, you know, wildfires

11:46

and hurricanes in particular, are

11:48

getting worse because of human-caused climate change. We

11:50

know that, the science is extremely clear

11:52

on that. What's also clear is that these

11:54

kinds of extreme events are going to get

11:56

worse the more the world warms. I mean, the reason

11:59

the Biden administration. wants to limit our emissions

12:01

to 50% of what they were in 2005 is because the more

12:05

the climate warms the worse these things are gonna

12:07

get. It's not like there's just some set amount

12:10

of more intense and more frequent wildfires

12:13

as the world gets hotter. They're already

12:15

more intense, they're already more frequent and that's going

12:17

to become increasingly so the more

12:19

the world warms.

12:20

Right and we're not even getting into like the

12:22

extreme heat here which is the most

12:25

extreme weather that people will experience frequently

12:27

right? Like these are getting worse, people are actively

12:30

dying every summer when the temperatures are

12:33

plus 110 degrees

12:34

for a week straight. We don't really have a lot

12:36

of infrastructure for this. Yes, sad little

12:38

known fact that of all natural

12:40

disasters that occur in the US every year heatwaves

12:43

kill more than everything else combined.

12:45

Nate, I do want to talk about this resilience

12:47

idea though and I guess I have a question for you

12:49

because the politics around

12:52

climate change are pretty broken.

12:54

Like we went from 2008 when both

12:57

candidates for president

13:00

agreed that climate change was a problem and

13:02

they agreed that that something should be done

13:05

to now where there's not agreement

13:07

where the parties have just gone in completely

13:09

different directions and there's polarization but

13:11

it strikes me that resilience like helping

13:14

communities protect themselves

13:17

from storms, building up wetlands

13:19

and other things to make them more able to

13:21

withstand hurricanes and things

13:23

like that. That in theory

13:26

is less polarizing and is potentially

13:29

an area of political coming

13:31

together.

13:32

Yeah I mean like look everybody loves

13:34

to talk about the weather. I cover a lot of these natural

13:36

disasters around the country and

13:38

you know like I've heard it from you know Imperial

13:41

Beach like the far southern end of California

13:43

right? It's on the coast. It's a town

13:45

that's got a big military presence. It's

13:47

a pretty conservative place. Talk to

13:49

the mayor there a few years ago and he was like look I

13:51

just don't call the climate change. I've reported

13:53

on crazy flooding in the heartland right in

13:56

the Bible Belt and talk to people

13:58

there and I mean like a colleague and I becker

14:00

hirscher we kind of made a deal that like everyone

14:02

we talk to about what they were seeing like we'd ask

14:04

unpaid you think climate change is contributing

14:06

to this and everybody we talked to was

14:08

like yes climate change is real

14:10

it's a thing and we're seeing

14:12

it it's something i'm experiencing were

14:15

gets a little more complicated is kind of what are the causes

14:17

of climate change right so i do think

14:19

that there's a lot of room there to

14:21

talk about solutions to talk about

14:24

resiliency to talk about adaptation

14:26

especially in conservative places without

14:28

mentioning climate change and just saying hey we're

14:30

going to put in a i do that you know a new

14:33

fled abatement plan because

14:35

we all can agree that flooding is

14:37

getting worse right and and

14:39

that's something you're gonna see a lot of support for because

14:41

everybody is seeing that they just don't

14:43

want to get in the sticky politics or climate change

14:45

are i i want to zoom out a little bit sir last

14:48

year at the bulls un climate conference

14:50

all of the world's largest historic

14:52

amateurs and us as we talked about earlier

14:55

is the greatest an air of them all at

14:57

they all agree to start a loss and damage

14:59

fund essentially to basically help poorer

15:02

in sense that haven't really done much to cause

15:04

the climate the images that their faith

15:06

thanks i'm but the u s nate despite

15:09

items pledge here to quadruple international

15:11

climate spending bill for the really pitched

15:13

in all that much as i write

15:14

yes what i was at the big un climate

15:16

summit last year in sharm el sheikh cop

15:18

twenty seven it's certainly going to be one of the big

15:21

items i got twenty eight in dubai

15:23

here in december i will be there to

15:25

so we can talk then but

15:28

you know like yeah look the richest most powerful twenty

15:30

countries in the world read the g twenty produce about

15:32

eighty percent of the world's emissions every

15:34

year so when we're talking about

15:36

kind of who's to blame in terms

15:39

of what like what what's causing climate change

15:41

it certainly the richest countries in the world's generally

15:43

the global north ah and the

15:45

places that are feeling some of the most effects of

15:48

climate change right now are is the

15:50

global south so there is a desire

15:52

in a lot of countries like you know the marshall

15:54

islands and a pretty much all

15:56

of africa all these places people are saying like

15:58

looks judy to give us money to

16:00

be able to adapt to the climate impacts

16:03

that we're feeling right now and to

16:05

pay for some of the damages that we're seeing when

16:07

we have devastating floods. Like we

16:09

saw last year in Pakistan or the

16:12

devastating floods that happened in Bangladesh or

16:14

the crazy wildfires that we're seeing

16:16

all across the South Pacific. This is supposed

16:19

to be a horrific fire season in Australia

16:21

again this year. There's a desire

16:23

to see countries put money into that. The

16:25

US, other G20 countries have

16:28

not put their money where their mouth is. President

16:30

Biden in the United States says it has provided a billion

16:32

dollars to something called the Green Climate Fund,

16:35

which brings total US contributions to

16:37

that fund to $2 billion. That

16:39

is obviously not $4 billion. And

16:42

so I think there's a growing frustration from countries

16:45

that are going to take part in these climate negotiations

16:47

next month about countries

16:50

actually ponying up and putting money into some of this stuff.

16:53

All right. We're going to leave it there for today. And Nate Rod,

16:55

thanks so much for joining us. Hey, pleasure.

16:57

Thanks for having me. I'm Chief Ashivaram. I

16:59

cover the White House.

17:00

And I'm Tamara Keith. I also cover

17:02

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