When Great Power Conflict and Climate Action Collide
About this episode
Guest host Rogé Karma asks how two goals — rapid decarbonization and great-power competition — can coexist when they appear to collide. Jason Bordoff and Meghan O'Sullivan argue the energy transition depends on the very things geopolitics now threatens: critical minerals processed overwhelmingly in China, and massive capital flows to the developing world, which needs trillions of dollars to decarbonize. They discuss 'de-risking' versus outright protectionism, the risk that industrial policy becomes a wasteful subsidy race, and whether friendshoring can realistically work. On climate finance, they argue the West must help developing nations leapfrog fossil fuels or global emissions will not fall regardless of domestic progress. The conversation finds more agreement than dispute: all three see industrial policy as necessary but worry that execution — permitting, trade rules, and coalition-building — will determine whether the transition succeeds.