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Encouraging global partners to achieve 1.5 °C climate goal, says USEPA head
Combating the climate crisis and ensuring that we don’t get to that 1.5 degrees Celsius or beyond is very critical and so encouraging all of our global partners to make the necessary commitments to achieve that goal, reducing plastic pollution, and focusing on ocean health
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael S Regan, who is leading the delegation of the United States for the G20 Ministerial Meeting in Chennal on Environment and Climate Sustainability, spoke to Divya Chandrababu about finding it harder to reach a consensus with every individual community on a different level of commitment on carbon reduction and investments for mitigation, and the goal to move to the COP28 with more unity.
Q. What is the progress on India-United States’ clean energy finance?
Well, I think you know, we both understand that we are facing a climate crisis and our two countries just have such a long history of working together exchanging education information and technology. And, so as we look at technologies like battery storage, wind and solar, and a more advanced electricity grid, we’re very excited to be able to share research and development and educational knowledge around how we reduce our carbon footprints while growing our economies. So, I met with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-M) yesterday, and we talked about the importance of public-private partnerships as well as partnerships between government, academia and the private sector because it will take all of us working together to ensure that we don’t get to that 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Q. Climate finance has been a sticky issue in climate negotiations. India has repeatedly said that rich countries have failed to provide US $ 100 billion every year of public-funded climate finance. By when do you think this can happen even as there are assessments that developing countries will need more than 1 billion dollars for transition?
We are focused on ensuring, number one, that we combat the climate crisis and we do it not leaving anyone behind. We recognize that those who have the least amongst this globally are actually on the front lines and facing both pollution and the impacts of climate change in some of the worst ways. You know EPA isn’t leading necessarily on climate finance, but we are supporting the agencies in the United States that are in those negotiations.
Q. What are the biggest climate issues that the United States is raising at the G20?
Combating the climate crisis and ensuring that we don’t get to that 1.5 degrees Celsius or beyond is very critical and so encouraging all of our global partners to make the necessary commitments to achieve that goal, reducing plastic pollution, and focusing on ocean health. And, very important for the United States is environmental justice and equity ensuring that as we pursue all of these solutions we don’t leave any of our communities behind and we work hard to be sure that our developing countries are just as competitive as we think about the new clean tech.
Q. Southwest US and Europe have seen unprecedented heat waves in July while there was flooding in north India. Will the US support Loss and Damage?
I think that you know, we’re focused on understanding that while we work on reducing climate pollution to mitigate further the crisis, we have to be focused on resiliency and adapt to some of these changes that we’re experiencing and living through droughts, as you say in the United States, flooding here in India, intense storms, so there are some learnings that we all can share on how we live with some of these issues.
When you think about Climate Finance, Loss and Damages, there are ongoing negotiations about how to address those topics and there are other agencies outside of EPA in the United States that are focused on leading those negotiations. But our goal is to support those agencies and ensure that whatever determinations are made that they’re done equitably so that no one’s left behind.
Q. Commitments on reigning greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, global warming of 1.5 °C are being thorny in reaching consensus in Chennai. Trebling of renewable energy, and phasing down of fossil fuels were not agreed in the previous meeting in Goa. What is your view on COP28 President designate Sultan calling for strong statements on climate mitigation and specifically on tripling renewable energy, meeting gaps in Paris agreements, and doubling adaptation by 2025?
I think that we’re making progress on those conversations. I think when we return from our lunch break and we hear the readouts, we’ll have a more definitive answer on where we are with the success rate of many of those topics. But from my conversations with my colleagues, I think people recognize that during our last meeting, we did not achieve many of those objectives. And so I think there is a desire to see if we can this time around.
Q. Several Indian cities are reeling under air pollution. What can you say about its health impacts? Do you think a law like the Air Act can work in developing countries?
The EPA is laser-focused on air quality and air pollution in the United States. The same technologies or many of the same technologies that we are focusing on for mitigating the climate crisis would also mitigate air pollution. We know that transportation is the number one contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also a significant contributor to air pollution. If we move to electric vehicles and electrified transportation and focus on technologies, like carbon capture and sequestration, we begin to take a very strong approach to reducing air pollution to protect Public Health while also reducing climate pollution to save the planet. So, I think there’s sort of a co-benefit to those technologies.
Q. What has the Chennai meeting achieved? What are the takeaways as you go towards COP28 from here?
The goal is to go into G7 and the next COP with a much stronger more unified position around, you know, where the countries that the largest economies are going to focus and invest and whether or not these global leaders can unify in a way that puts us on a trajectory to stay at or below 1.5 Celsius.
Q. What are the different positions where a consensus is looking harder to reach?
I think just the levels of commitments from various countries on how much carbon can be reduced by each country. You know, there are some concerns there. I think there are some concerns in terms of the levels of investment that will go into these mitigation practices. I would argue that many of the G20 countries are aligned in so many ways and there are less dividing factors than there are uniting factors.
Q. And are there any specific uniting factors that you would like to highlight in the negotiations because the US is the biggest carbon contributor after China?
I think there is an aggressive conversation going on with all of the countries about the reduction of plastics and ocean health, commitment to biodiversity and deforestation and deforestation is a strong mitigating tool for climate. So there are some areas where there is strong connectivity.
Q. You did some work in Chennai’s Elliot’s Beach and IIT-M yesterday besides G-20.
I enjoyed it. The conversation at the Institute was another example of world-class academic and start-up companies focused on sustainability and tackling the climate crisis and lots of opportunities for India and the United States to partner in a very entrepreneurial and technologically advanced way. Spending time on the beach with the young people was inspirational. Their focus and their intelligence level about our climate, our planet, and their role was aspiring because I wasn’t thinking that way when I was their age. And so just so you know everything we do, we engage with the community and get the community’s voice so that I can bring it back to the table when I’m sitting with world leaders.
And so this was another example of spending time with academicians and entrepreneurs and young people and hearing how the climate crisis is impacting them where the opportunities are and I’m able to bring them back to these G20 discussions. From day one, President Biden indicated to the world that the United States was back and we would be a global leader in combating the climate crisis and demonstrating leadership. You know, the President has been able to secure historic levels of funding, you know, the 400 billion dollars just focused on tackling the climate crisis alone. And in addition to that, re-engaging and participating in the global conversation. So we’re just excited to be back at the table demonstrating leadership but also bringing in some ways that we can connect it back to the communities and back to real people.
