The governor engaging China on climate

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Jerry Brown has spent a lifetime warning us of our folly. The three-time presidential candidate and four-term California governor has been championing sustainable development since the 1970s. His philosophical, Jesuit- and Zen-influenced approach has made him a singular presence in American politics.

Since leaving office in 2019, Brown, 83, has led the California-China Climate Institute, a Berkeley-affiliated think tank that this week made the case for the early retirement of about 1,000 coal-fired power plant units across China.

We interviewed Brown last week at his off-the-grid Northern California ranch about his work with China, his worries about Congress and the darkening outlook for global cooperation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What kind of work are you doing with China?

The idea is to forge relationships in technical work that will pave the way for policy proposals and initiatives, and then collaboration on policy proposals. That’s the goal. Of course, we’re in a very difficult relationship with China and a lot of hostility, competition, wariness on both sides. So I see this institute as moving against the stream, as it were, to forge cooperation on climate, on the environment. That’s our goal. It’s a small step. We’re not government. But nevertheless, given a time of misunderstanding, this is a very positive connection.

You’ve been engaged with China for a long time now. Is there anything that you can take credit for so far? They launched a carbon-trading system last year.

If you’re thinking of credit, you’re looking back. I would rather look ahead or look in front of me. I think we’ve opened doors, and those doors have stayed open. But China is such a vast empire of people and complexity that we have to be somewhat modest in our statements. Nevertheless, I personally met with [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] on several occasions, I’ve held a dialogue with [Chinese climate envoy] Mr. Xie [Zhenhua], and John Kerry, and [Michael] Bloomberg, and others. Hank Paulson. So the institute has had some reach into the China world. And I think that’s helpful and very important, given the fact that the climate challenge is a global challenge. And it has to be handled by countries everywhere, but most importantly, China and the U.S., as the major polluters.

Do you think it’s more important to engage with China on climate than the U.S. at this point? Who’s more important? And who’s done more?

That I can’t tell you. I have a little...[rummages in pocket and pulls out a crumpled tissue] No. I don’t have a little ball that tells me.They’re making more electric cars. They’ve got more wind machines. I think we maybe have more efficient buildings. They’ve got more high-speed rail. China, I think, has great potential. But I wouldn’t want to say more than that, because there’s so much to do. Let’s see how they do on coal. Do they take this report and act on it? I think that’ll be a very important test. And then America, what happens? What’s the Supreme Court going to rule? Are they going to make it very difficult for the federal government to curb carbon emissions? Will a Republican Congress promote not only anti-climate policies, but pro-coal and pro-fossil fuel and anti-efficiency? That could well be.

Carbon emissions are similar to the virus; they’ve taken on a political coloration. So just as some people are against the vaccine, some people are against curbing carbon emissions. And they both have lethal consequences.

Do you see any cause for optimism? When Trump took office, you predicted that somehow his excesses would galvanize people to take action on climate change.

It did. It raised the awareness level, because it made it a controversy, and news is the prisoner of controversy. So that helped broaden awareness, increase news dissemination. Now, of course, we’re facing really a turn here. Is Congress going to rise to the occasion? Or is China going to become the leader? And they’ll be lecturing us on what to do if we fall back. And certainly there are a lot of Republicans who don’t — most Republicans in Congress don’t want to do anything. So that’s very bad. They’re in denial on one of the most important issues in the world.

Would you still meet with President Xi if you were governor now?

Certainly I would meet with him if I thought it could be positive. I don’t believe in not meeting. I believe that China and the U.S. must collaborate very closely on climate and other matters. And in many respects, there are many thinkers that are moving in what I would call a different direction. And this is not the 19th century. We can’t have China in one place and America in another, 40 billion tons of CO2 going up in the air.

Has anything come of the agreements that you signed with China as governor?

The cap-and-trade that they’ve adopted. The memorandums are more general. But the fact that we’re signing them is a lot better than denunciations and calls for all sorts of condemnation.

There’s a mood in the country called a Manichaean mood, which is a philosophy of “The world is sharply divided between good and bad, and we’re good, and they’re bad.” I don’t see it that way. We’re all on planet Earth. The emissions are coming from America, they’re coming from China, we’ve got to work together.

The folks in Congress love their what I would call Manichaean indulgences. Luxuriating in the denunciation of evil, while implying their own inherent goodness, even though they’re in a questionable undertaking: hustling money and images, wherever they can, in a sometimes unseemly manner, which should call for humility, and not this kind of exuberance of, “We’re good and they’re bad.”

Whether they do good, bad or indifferent, the world is going to hell, and unless people get off their ridiculous, Manichaean positioning, we’re not going to be able to get the carbon emissions down to a tolerable level fast enough.

Should Germany keep its nuclear plants open to reduce dependence on Russian natural gas?

I think there’s a strong argument for that. But I know there’s some problems like Chernobyl and earthquakes and waste, and providing a target for a terrorist. So there’s plenty of issues. But some people think you need more nuclear. Other people think it’s too expensive and we could do it other ways. I don’t have enough knowledge to be able to resolve that.

Is California’s climate policy everything you hoped it would be? The cap and trade program only has Quebec as a trading partner and is under perpetual pressure from environmentalists and analysts to reduce the supply of carbon allowances to ensure emissions don’t exceed state limits.

California is doing more than any other state. It’s doing quite a lot. It’s nowhere near what it needs to do, but it may be up against the limits of current political acceptability.

Here’s the problem. You’ve got to manage it in a sustainable way. If you take out so many allowances, then the price shoots up, and there’s an absolute backlash in the legislature and they create more allowances. I say we have to do more, but you have to bring people along. Or you get a new president, a new Congress and they’ll go in the other direction. Look at what Trump did.

This is why politics is an art as well as a science. You have to balance and try to push as far as you can, but don’t push to the point where now you’re going the other direction.

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