Longtime Political Advisor John Podesta Cites Progress and Setbacks for Climate Policy in the Newest Episode of “Environmental Insights”

Longtime national political advisor John Podesta shared his insights on climate policy, the challenges of securing bipartisan support, and the global push toward clean energy in the newest episode of“Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.” The podcast is produced by the Harvard Environmental Economics Program. Listen to the interview here. 

Hosted by Robert N. Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard Kennedy School and director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program and the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Environmental Insights is intended to promote public discourse on important issues at the intersection of economics and environmental policy. 

Podesta, who played key roles under U.S. presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden, served as Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy in 2024-25, overseeing more than $750 billion in clean energy investments contained in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). 

“It was an investment-led strategy, private sector-led, although government-enabled strategy to boost investment, innovation, job creation, cost reductions, and it covered every emitting sector of the economy, unlike efforts in the past that really just focused on power production or transportation when very little attention was being paid to the emissions that [were] the result of land use or industrial process,” he remarked. “The world saw [the IRA] as the United States really getting in the game in a very positive way… Even our European colleagues… did not see this as a zero-sum game and we thought that the improvements, the innovations, the ability to create a green hydrogen industry was going to benefit the world, including Europe and European companies.”

Podesta stressed that the IRA also served U.S. international relations interests in important ways. 

“It gave us a way to partner with others who were also worried about economic domination in these [clean energy] sectors, that they would be left out and left behind, and notwithstanding that some cheap Chinese clean technology was flooding the market,” he said. “It was kind of undermining domestic investment in places like Brazil, like India. And they saw the U.S. as a reliable partner in saying that we need to… share a vision, but we also need to attend to our own domestic populations and make sure we're building strong economies.”

Everything changed when the Trump administration came to power, Podesta remarked, undermining much of the climate progress that had been made during the Obama and Biden administrations.

“We’re in a period of under President Trump with ideology that is definitely hostile to the development of the clean energy economy and indeed in dealing with climate change… I sometimes describe this administration as the Empire Strikes Back. We saw a huge boost in investment in clean technology, and now we're seeing reversal of that with a substantial loss of jobs, prices rising. And it's interesting because it's happening in the middle of the first time in a generation… of increasing demand for electricity,” he said. “We see this booming demand for electricity, and [Trump has] taken off the table the cheapest, cleanest, reliable, and deployable sources of energy. Maybe the iconic example is the war we see on offshore wind in the Northeast and New England.”

On the upside, Podesta remarked, international efforts to reduce emissions and address climate change are moving in the right direction. 

“The overall picture across the globe is to spur investment innovation in these technologies as opposed to polluting fossil fuels and that is happening virtually everywhere except the United States… and a couple of others who are resisting that trend. But I think at a political level, and certainly at a technical and scientific level, the damage that is resulting from a warming planet is obvious and people are trying to do something about it,” he said. “Whether that's in the big economies in Europe or the big economies in Asia, the push is towards trying to develop cleaner resources and less polluting resources, trying to invest in adaptation and resilience, trying to find a way to get financial flows going to support that transition.”

Podesta’s interview is the sixth episode during 2025 in the Environmental Insights series, with additional episodes scheduled to drop each month.   

“Environmental Insights is intended to inform and educate listeners about important issues relating to an economic perspective on developments in environmental policy, including the design and implementation of market-based approaches to environmental protection,” said Stavins. “We speak with accomplished Harvard colleagues, other academics, and practitioners who are working on solving some of the most challenging public problems we face.”

Environmental Insights is hosted on SoundCloud and is also available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, and Spotify. 

LINK TO PODCAST: https://on.soundcloud.com/FqXM55JPk7XzWp0uz3