Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion 20240702

Cspan, online or listen to the podcast. Learn more about the author featured. Up next, a Panel Discussion on the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act on the u. S. And the world. Topics include Clean Energy Investments and combatting Climate Change. Hosted by the Brookings Institution, this discussion is about an hour. [inaudible conversations] thank you for sticking around for another terrific panel. Let me introduce on the Inflation Reduction Act. In the middle, Samantha Gross for the Climate Initiative and fellow policy at brookings, focusing on Climate Policy and International Cooperation and Net Zero Energy systems and geopoliticals and the Global Energy market. To my far left, Joshua Meltzer is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and leads the forum on cooperation in Artificial Intelligence and leads the ums pardon me, usmca Initiative Focuses how the United States, mexico, Canada Agreement can strengthen cooperation in north america. His research focuses on economic relations and the intersection of technology and trade policy. And Ken Lieberthal with the longest bio and deservedly so is a senior at brookings, 2009 to 2016, senior fellow in the policy and Global Economy and development program, from 20092012 served as director of the john l forton china center. President for National Security affairs and asia on the National Security council from 1998 through 2000 and someone that i would constantly call to explain to me what was happening in the world of climate cooperation between the United States and china. Thank you all for being here and for holding this discussion. I am particularly happy to learn from this panel because i have struggled to sort of get my arms around the sort of international aisesment of the ira. Ive covered 11, it will 12 this year, should i stop . [laughter] and you know, for as long as ive been covering this, the Global Community has said America Needs to lead and now that the United States has its first significant and really globally significant climate law, nobody likes the way weve done it. So id love to start with you, for really just a global i think we have a good handle, but id love for you to touch on europe specifically, but how other countries both perceive the ira and you know, and think about what the United States is doing. Thank you, lisa and thanks for being with us here today. I appreciate it. Yeah, when the ira was first passed i spent a lot of time talking to europeans, but also, folks, our friends in asia, particularly, japan, south korea, singapore, and the general consensus that i got, and i paraphrase, was, yeah, were so glad youre doing something serious on climate. And we didnt want it to be like that. Okay. Fine. I think the two things that other countries and the europeans in particular were most frustrated was was first, just the size of the subsidies. I mean, gunther said it earlier today, this isnt just the largest climate bill weve ever seen in the United States, this is the largest investment in climate and green energy in transition that the world has ever seen, and i think it was frankly kind of intimidating. We are the Worlds Largest economy, but when we look at europe, they dont have the ability to do it the way we do. The European Union isnt a taxing authority. It cant use its tax code to provide benefits to investments. And so, that has to be done at the individual country level and the individual countries have different abilities to act in that way. So, its a really difficult thing for europe to replicate. And so, thats one important reason why the europeans looked at it and frustrated the way it went down. I had a lot of conversations with them about politically, why it happened the way it did. We could talk about that, if you want. But that was one source of frustration. The second source was the protection aspects of it and i think that john podesta touched on those two. Those protection aspects werent aimed at our friends and allies in europe or asia, they were aimed at china as i look at my friend and colleague ken. Theres an understanding that china is an important leader in the green energy technologies, everything from solar panels, to batteries, to electric vehicles, to Critical Minerals and theres this concern, and i get asked this question more than any other, are we trading dependence on middle east and regimes were concerned about for dependence on china . You know, are we trading one thing for another . The answer to that i think is largely no for a lot of reasons, but thats why you saw these protectionist instincts. In addition to a desire to create these jobs, these industries of the future here, in the United States. Its part of the administrations general policy to grow our economy from the middle class outward. So, both of those were challenging and upsetting to kind of our allies, but for a lot of political reasons. That was the way its going to go down. And ive spent time with that, how we got here, where it is and hopefully we can find room in the middle to relate. All right, so do we trade our dependence on the middle east for dependence on china. Thats the question before we get into the u. S. , china and chinas Climate Policies itself. Ken, id love for you to talk about this as well. The primary republican argument against the ira and Clean Energy Policies is exactly that, right, that we are dependent on china for the china dominates the supply chain. The Clean Energy Policies are making us dependent upon china. We heard john podesta say all of the figures which im sure you know off the top of your head as well of chinas dominance in Critical Minerals, et cetera. Is there true to this . Well, theres no question that china is pay ahead of us in most of these areas and in dealing with Climate Change. Theyre way ahead of us because years ago, with the big bump up in 2015, but before that, they determined that they had to make enormous investments to deal with their environment and with Climate Change and its impact on the environment, and so theyve ramped that up dramatically. We did not. Now were eight to 10 years later, the chinese have done a tremendous amount in including getting control over entire value chains, and were now jumping in, you know, with both feet. Jumping into something, to a set of issues where in many cases the chinese are ahead of us on technology. They have Production Capacity that we have not built. They have control over supplies that we do not have. And they know how to do it. Theyve put the whole system together. For us to go in and not deal with the chinese, cooperate with them where we can, buy from them or license technology from them when we must, is simply to delay our transition, our capacity to deal with these problems more on our own. I think the u. S. Government, the Biden Administration recognizes very clearly that we have to develop our own capabilities over time, but its going to take time and if we dont seek to learn where the chinese are ahead, learn from them how theyre doing this, license their technology so we understand them better and can build plants here, its simply going to delay our transition. Should we be worried about the near term dependence . I think the chinese are very anxious to export. I think theyre happy to sell us stuff and you know, including batteries that ford dealing with china and to build a battery plant in michigan thats now in trouble politically, they were happy to license the Tech Technology to us and build the batteries. But theyre well able to build here. If you go back a ways, the chinese left ahead in orindustrialization over the last 30 years because they recognized they had to learn from the United States and from the advanced industrial countries so they let us in big time in their financial system, in all aspects of their industrial systems, et cetera, and learned from us. And eventually pulled ahead of us in some areas. Thats the way you get ahead. If youre behind to reinvent the wheel is a very expensive, very long, longterm approach and very likely to leave you falling farther behind as the other folks who are already in the game are moving ahead at a pace, also. So, you know, to say that were being were becoming more dependent on china, im sorry, what should we be doing . If the chinese have capacity to dominate these industries and were just going to sit there and say, well, we cant deal with any of them, were going to have to do it on our own and be fairly protectionist to approach this so even our friends and allies have concerns about how were doing it, i think that multiplies our problem so we need to be nuanced about this and not categorical about it. Can you walk us through how the ira has affected americas trade relationships . Yeah, sure. So its probably worth thanks for having me, its great to be here. Its, you know, were reflecting on why the ira is trying to achieve multiple objectives at the same time. Its got clearly a climate objective, a National Security objective with respect to reducing reliance on Critical Minerals in particular and other technologies from china and its got industrial strategy component to it as well and i think when you have these multiple important complex objectives, youre going to have a variety of unintended consequences domestically and globally and we saw very quickly that there were a range of provisions in the ira which raise a number of trade tensions. The main one, which got a lot of focus initially was access to the tax credit for electric vehicles and requirements for there essentially to be assembly, originally it was actually going to be just the United States, then that was expanded to include canada and mexico, so north american partners, i think, were somewhat relieved by that particular outcome, but very quickly became apparent that the europeans and the japanese, the south koreans, large car producing countries that this was going to be a problem and its clearly a violation of, you know, to require certain amounts of domestic content in order to essentially get access to a tax credit is a is a violation of nondiscrimination, you know, commitment in the wto. So, it was sort of a fairly straight forward, i think, wto issue from strict trade lanes and the way that the ira was drafted essentially if you had a Free Trade Agreement with the United States you could essentially be exempt from this. So the United States, the administration to its credit seemed to i have no insight into the rest of this, but seemed to be somewhat taken by surprise, i think, by the fact that this became a trade problem and the reaction of allies toward it and they moved fairly quickly, i think, to address that so we got the what the socalled Critical Minerals agreement with japan, which is being deemed a Free Trade Agreement under the ira to get around, essentially, that provision and the u. S. And the euro in protracted negotiations to reach a similar deal on that as well. So i think if theres progress on those fronts, sort of those immediate trade concerns get resolved. I think theres start of a bigger set of trade issues that comes up, which is the shift to your heavy reliance on tax credits and subsidies more generally to push the green transition. Yeah, its a complex debate because the wto rules and the rules that we generally have on subsidies have always been contentious and theyve always been somewhat economically incoherent. Theres sort of a legal approach to them, which is, you know, really needs to be understood through a political lens as trying to balance a sort of economic view of subsidies with a realization that its politically difficult for countries for large subsidized imports even though you may make a lot of economic sense, theres a lot of political constituents that get upset by this understandably, so their safety valve in trade agreements that allow governments, essentially try to neutralizing impacting the subsidy embedded in the import. But, you know, were now in a world where, you know, the u. S. , eu, china, you know, japan, you know, moving to subsidize the transitions to the clean economy so these increasingly look out of date generally speaking and the final point i want to make is that the the need for subsidies to enable their transition needs will be considered in light of the subsidies that are given for fossil fuels. Its been a lot of work from the oecd and the imf and trying to transition the world out of fossil fuel subsidies being unsuccessful and subsidies are significantly higher today than three years ago, for instance, and also not a level Playing Field when one thinks how do you enable the technologies and allow them to compete with fossil fuels and technologies as well. I want to come back to the subsidies, but i want to turn back to climate as a climate reporter, you know, from where i sit the success of the ira really rises and falls on whether it ultimately cuts emissions and encourages other countries to cut emissions, samantha, were still seeing, you know, raging debates over even the phrase, phase out or phase down and last year it didnt make it in at all. You know, the sort of, you know when we heard all of these years america has to lead the assumption was, other countries would rally, once the United States had really acted on climate. Why is that not happening . Thats an excellent question and, yeah, i feel like some of the debate that were having at the cops and other events and new york climate week a couple of weeks ago, things are we going to phase out or phase down fossil fuels. I have to be honest i find that debate frustrating. The demand for fossil fuels is going up. Whether were arguing to phase out or phase down is the same thing, we need to phase out fossil fuels, lets phase down and stop talking about it and move on to practicalities. One thing thats a good example for the ira, it may be for difficult for others countries for reasons. But things in the ira i think are exemplary and when i talk to folks in European Industry and other parts of the world that they really like, its quite technology neutral. Its focused on emissions, which is the thing that the environment really cares about. For instance, if you look at the hydrogen subsidies, theyre not focused on what color the hydrogen is, whether its made from natural gas or solar energy or any other color and there are tomorrow to count out there, its focus on the emissions associated with it and the subsidy phases in, as the emissions go down. Thats very appealing because it allows folks in industry to go out and do projects that bring the emissions down and not worry whether theyre meeting a specific Technology Standards and allows the technology to change and develop. You see that in our power subsidies as well. Zero carbon power is subsidized. Its not specifically from a specific manufacturer or place. Thats very appealing and so, i think about how the u. S. Is leading. I feel like were leading in policies that allow technology to flourish. Both in the way that were supporting Technology Development as john touched on at the beginning, and also that were quite neutral in the way that our policies support technologies. As long as they take us towards the goal of lower emissions and so thats a leadership part on the part of the u. S. That i real like and i hope is followed. And then what do chinese leaders think of the ira . What do policy makers how do they view our law . I think first of all the chinese leaders were not surprised by the ira or protectionist provisions, especially. They back in the teens looked ahead and said, at some point, the u. S. Is going to try to cut back our development, our rate of development, and is going to regard us as a competitor not as a partner and well take measures to cut us out and build up their own capabilities and our response to that preemptively has got to be were going to develop basically selfreliant systems. And they started doing that. En masse, very much including the array of areas that are directly related to Climate Change and environmental sustainability. So when the ira was passed, its interesting, its not discussed much in china. That hasnt been a big you go looking for articles about the ira in china, that isnt what its about. Its about competition with the United States and how the United States is trying to limit chinas development and so, we were right to go on more selfsufficient path and increasing our focus on being able to do that. So, in a sense, the ira, for xi jinping has been confirmation how smart he is. And thats, you know, that is as it is. Frankly, im glad that we are now in this game at a very, you know, very high level and i hope that when we deal with the chinese, we are both open to benefitting from what they have accomplished, but also, at the same time, taking substantial measures to prevent them from doing to us what they have done in the past and continue to do today, which is they use unfair trade practices, huge hidden subsidies, et cetera, to undermine your capabilities as youre buying from them. And so, we need intelligent policies to limit the damage that they can do to us, at the same time that we have to recognize that we really need to be able to absorb some of the advances that theyve made and build on them ourselves. What would you describe as u. S. Climate policy toward china . I dont mean to be glib here, but it feels like gee, we hope john kerry can convince the Chinese Government to do more. John kerry is a terrific climate diplomate and he deals primarily with his equivalent in china and hes really committed to Climate Response and International Cooperation on it. So hes got a good partner. The problem, as i see it, is that we focus tremendously on the top line carbon reduction commitments that china will make. When are you going to do it, whats the percentage that its going to be, et cetera. Its a fruitless discussion. Xi jinping has said, this is in the just in response to john kerry, but for years. He said it when john kerry was in china. He said it when john kerry is in china and it shouldnt be shock not the first time he said it, china will determine its own pace and timing of carbon reductions and will do it in a way that fits with chinas conditions. Theyre setting a peak emissions goal for 2030 or before, Carbon Neutrality by 2060 or before. A lot depends how high all of this gets before they hit those kind of benchmark years. But i have no doubt that they will do a lot on carbon reduction, on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions, but they arent going to do it because were pushing them. And so, but actually below that level on methane, on all kinds of other issues, i think theres a lot that can be negotiated in terms of cooperation and i deal with a lot of people in china, through technicians and serious players in those other areas and theyre very anxious to cooperate with the United States. I think the barriers to that are much lower. When you push them on the top line number that they, you know, they push back very hard. And frankly, i dont know how accurate the numbers are for and coal . Coal is, to my mind, one of the biggest failures in china. They have tried for years to reduce coal as a percentage of their energy sourcing. They have made modest progress in that at best. They continue to build coal power plants, including in provinces that already have an abundance of coal, dont need it at all, and i think that its a combination of several things. One, what they talk about, which is they say we need coal to smooth out when our Renewable Energy resources have gaps. You know, the sun dont shine at night. Wind dies down, et cetera. So we need that as our baseline to bring on, so the new coal power plants they say will operate between 5 and 15 capacity, just to utilize as a stop gap. Secondly though, clearly, theres a lot of local politics with coal. A lot of localities depend on it for employment, depend on it for building their own gdp and they get rewarded for it in that system, even if the top is saying dont do that. You know, its a multilayered system. By the time they get down to the local levels, the politics are complicated. So, they have a hard time cutting back on coal. I think they need to take it much more much, much more seriously than they are. Right. What do you think of the prospects of a carbon tariff and do to global trade relations . Let me back into that question by picking up on your previous question to sam about, you know, the world rallying and great and why is it not so smooth. I think if youve been paying attention to the implementation of ambitious Climate Policy, particularly in terms of how weve dealt with the socalled competitiveness implications, it was clearly going to be a deeply challenging and messy process and so, i think there was a world that was focused on targets and commitments and financing, where just more of that was just an unadulterated good thing, but then i think once you moved out of that space into what the domestic politics were going to be around this and what the politics were going to look like, it was always going to look very complicated. I think even if you go back to the obama years where theres a serious push on, you know, a carbon tax in the United States. You know, that was deeply, you know im going to say polluted, but a big part of that conversation was how do we deal with the implications over domestic carbon tax for competitiveness in our industry to be taxed more and carbon leakage and industry, low tax jurisdictions. Conversation was around. A domestic aadjustment and that was carbon. Right. Yes, please, go ahead. Yeah, so, you know, so that came up in the various bills that went through the house and senate at the time. And 08, 09, and so forth. There was a lot of intellectual effort to put into how could you stitch different carbon taxes in different jurisdictions together. And it was all based on the premise that the u. S. Would have a carbon tax and that you could have a project that would allow some comparability of effort and allow for some ability to make assessments about the applicability of your own carbon tax imports. And its more complicated in this world were in where the u. S. Has essentially, i think, conclude that had theres no viable political pathway to a carbon tax. And all right, a huge amounts of subsidies and tax credits and so forth, and that makes it a lot more complicated because theres no obvious way to draw benchmarks or to determine when essentially there is an equivalent level of efforts in the u. S. That would satisfy Something Like an eu carbon tax. So, how you stitch these systems together. Were at the beginning of that conversation, i think. This is sort of now part of the discussion the u. S. Is having with the eu over the impact of the ira and this has been bringing in impacted what would come into effect in a couple of years and your failure to resolve that is ultimately going to mean that theres going to be, you know, to put it in blunt terms, a deep sort of clash between the quantum and the trade systems and you can care about that on the institutional level and its deeply important at determining the cost of carbonization and decarbonization pathways. And this is picking up on kens point in a world where we were not concerned about chinas massive production much clean technology, wed just essentially be taking from them and thats where we are, but, ultimately, you know, there is a role for, you know, relatively free trade and carbon technologies, between trusted partners, between allies and so forth, that have to include the u. S. And the eu, certainly that will reduce the marginal costs of our partners. If we cant get there and essentially trade conflicts where the eu is essentially taxing exports, and the u. S. Is going to respond in kind and we have a much more costly decarbonization pathway ahead of us. So, what i mean, what essentially said, ira was essentially great for europe. Whats next in europe . You know, europe is coming around on the ira. I have to say, particularly european businesses. There are a lot of businesses that are investing in the United States because theyre excited about the subsidies and they frequently tell me that theyre excited about causing neutrality that i talk about, but youve seen the european responses to the ira. The repower program, the amendments to the European Green deal. Where theyre actually doing some subsidies of their own. On a smaller scale and much shorter time frame because they have less ability to do this, but this is happening in europe, so in some sense, theyre responding to the ira in iralike ways. But, i mean, id like to hope that this will continue to encourage the Energy Transition not just in europe, but in other countries as well. We heard the question earlier about what does this mean for the developing world . Not just the wealthy countries that the panel has been talking about. Ideally the work happening in china, the technologies that we may develop and lead here in the United States, and ones that china doesnt have a running start on us. All of these technologies will start to buy down the costs and well learn by dealing with High Hydrogen and the u. S. Well buy these down and develop economies of scale and supply chains and that will help everyone. This will be ideally a rising tide raises all boats so thats an area where i think the ira really benefits not just europe, not just asia, but the developing world as well. You know, just to close the loop on chinas emissions growth, can how high do you expect emissions to go before they peak in china . Which is, i mean, you said theres kind of one of the central questions. God, i wish i knew the answer to it. The emissions in china leveled off for a while in the early teens. They have now gone up again and theyre on an upward trajectory and i really dont know whats going to happen. A lot depends on the chinese economy itself and how rapidly thats developing and. I would say its certainly got to be higher than now. China now, keep in mind, has a Greenhouse Gas emissions that are equivalent to the sum of the Greenhouse Gas emissions of all the developed countries in the world. Okay. And every year is contributing these emissions to our the largest historic emitter . Frankly, i think those numbers are squishy to begin with, but ive heard people say around 2026 or Something Like that, but you know, whatever it is, what counts for the world now is how much how much Greenhouse Gas emissions are there going to be that are going to be around for the rest of our lifetimes in the atmosphere. I mean, these things dont disappear over time. And so what china does between now and 2030, where theyre peaking, assuming they peak then, makes a hell of a difference and they dont provide numbers on that. And we talked about john kerrys trip in july. He came home essentially emptyhanded. President xi jinping gave a speech in the country saying that china is going to cut emissions its way and at its pace. Also didnt meet with john kerry, but met with a different former secretary of state. I mean, is there much hope for diplomacy as were on this issue, both john kerry and his counterpart are receiving a lot of heat at home from in the case of secretary, in his own party on negotiations with china . I think theres a lot of room for diplomacy at a lower level where you can deal with issues about how do you scale up this kind of technology . Can we cooperate on Tech Development and, you know, doing pilot projects and then scaling up and can we make standards more compatible between the two countries which again contributes to potential scale up to technologies. There are all kinds of areas where we could do Work Together that should not be threatening, should be a winwin for the two sides and i think that lower level work on that can happen. Some of that has taken place now at a state level. California is very active ties with various chinese entities. And plans to go to california soon . Im sorry . I heard that Governor Newsom is planning a trip to california pardon me, planning a trip to china soon . [laughter] planning a trip to china soon . I dont know. But my point is, theres a lot that can be done in terms of global, you know, the equivalent of do we do a u. S. China bargain that then becomes a standard for the world . Im skeptical about that, the vibes on both sides make this very, very tough at this point. I went back and looked. When President Trump announced that the u. S. Would withdraw from paris agreement, emissions in china went up almost immediately because local governments felt much less pressure to, you know, really put the brakes on emissions because of the u. S. , you know, paris agreement, u. S. And chinese commitment to that agreement where the u. S. Defected, its kind of like the pressure is off, guys. And so thats, you know, what we do has an impact, but i think negotiating the top level is going to be very, very tough. Samantha, whats the best thing that could come out of cop 28 this year, held in a very controversial country and you know, oil and gas is front and center at this. Thats a great question. I have seen a lot of frustration with the choice of the doctor who leads the National Oil Company and leads a Renewable Company and served as the climate minister. The man wears many hats not just the oil industry. And frustration with his selection. Im actually quite pleased with his selection. I think he has a very wide view of the industry that can be useful. Im not only looking for two things, i think these are in line with what theyre looking for as well, one is i would really like to see more solid results for the financing problem for the developing world. This is a really big challenge. What weve seen a lot of the agreements weve seen happened with indonesia, vietnam, south africa, these are taking place outside the negotiation room and they work because theyre a significant emissions in these countries and also, significant Investment Opportunities so these sort of side deals that happen at the crops, but outside the negotiation room make a lot of sense, but the real challenge is, the smaller developing countries they dont have a lot of emissions right now. They need to develop their Energy Systems from scratch. Theres not a lot of space from Emissions Reductions because they dont have any. Those are really hard and those kind of get stuck in the negotiation room where were really focused on consensus and agreement and those are really difficult to do. I would really like to see those loosen up somewhat. I expect to see the emiraties to catalog these, looking for that and probably less popular among many folks, i would like to see im glad that the Energy Industry is involved in this and delighted to see them there. Despite the fact that we need to phase down and then out fossil fuels, notice how i got everybody there, we are going to be in the fossil fuel business for a while and that matters. I like to see the work that the industry is doing to reduce its own emissions. Its not everything, but its not nothing either. I was at a conference at the emirates last week, and every single session that was about policy or about technology, was focused on emissions, bar none. And what i see in the press is frustration that they werent talking about phasing out the product. Well, theyll phase out the product when we stop demanding the product. This is a systemic issue. In the meantime, im glad to see the industry included and what i hope to see is energy companies, oil and gas companies, the National Oil Companies and smaller countries dont have public faces, that dont have as much pressure to do this. I want to see them come on board, too. And i think thats something that theyre well placed to do. I want to see them reduce operations and emissions. I want to see methane emissions stop, or nearly stopped period. Its nearly a third of the Global Warming today and we know how to stop this, so lets do it. So those are outcomes i hope to see from. And other things going on im sure, but those are the two things im watching most closely. While youre getting your questions ready, ill start calling in a moment. But lets talk about demand. You know, is the ira sufficient to drive down demand in the u. S. . What more should the u. S. Do or, you know, at a u. N. Body at cops what can be done . So the short answer, as a situation globally, its clearly not enough. You know, theres been various estimates about the investment in clean energy thats needed to secure transition or hold 1. 5, which is approximately five trillion annually. So, its unclear how much capital the 350 million or so in the ira will essentially bring into the market, but its going to falwell short of what we need to do globally. So theres a huge amount of investment and i think thats actually needed globally to build that. Im not paying the kind of attention to the cop at the moment, but discloses, finance, how crucial thats going to be. Theres only so much that theyre going to be able to do. I think on the climate and finance part in any event. You know, its a small whatever has been promised over the years is a small part of the total thats going to ultimately be needed for the kind of Clean Energy Infrastructure transition and i think this is also where the world bank, the various Multilateral Development banks are going to play a key role, i think in financing capacity, the private investment they can pull in and the types of investments in the developing world and growth in emissions is happening now. So, that for me is a key focus and i think that its important, but i think its a small part of, i think, whats ultimately needed here. Lets start on this side, the first question. Thanks so much. Let me just acknowledge that the themes on the panel, trade, cooperation, that our friend and colleague worked on and all of us in brookings were shock at the news of his passing. I want to ask you, josh, about trade. What should we make of the agreements now, the japanese agreements, nascent european agreement and Critical Minerals, are these the new face of trade agreements or oneoff and wto and other things are going to be sideways and were not doing a lot on trade. Interesting question. I think that theres probably a couple of elements going on here. I think if you go back to, again, the last serious effort in the u. S. For carbon tax. There was a lot of attention paid to the wto consistsy to the carbon border adjustment and i think a sort of general consensus that its probably going to be okay for an exceptions provision and you may need to look back at bringing back an environmental kind of provision for subsidies that used to exist and so forth. It was central to the discussion. In the United States, its almost quaint to think about the wto being an institutional barrier to doing these types of actions at the moment, but if you go to europe, its not. Its still central to the way they think about their carbon adjustment and that theyre going to take. But i do think that this is the extent that the trade rules have, i think, become deeply secondary, to thinking about these types of actions i think is a u. S. Phenomenon. But as the wto is increasingly less able to be active on the sea sediment front, the appellate body is not able to develop new roles to this space. I think that view how seriously do we take wto when we think about the actions going forward, i think it will play out in other countries and what that will mean, i think, is a loosening of what weve already seen, which is a lot more subsidies, which, i think the approach was initially quite constrained by concern about what it would mean for wto rules. But i think it will mean that when it comes to carbon border adjustments that well see that they will also be less kind of, you know, bounded by concerns about wto consistency and how that might play out. So we may, you know, because theres a very strong domestic, political constituency. And one of the key pushbacks, were going to end up in a trade war, and wto commitments. And when youre a big country like the u. S. Theres we can handle this. To your question a little more specifically. I think this unravelling means that were probably going to see a lot more of these ideosyncratic kind of practically sort of like pragmatic approaches that will be problem solving in the moment, but will be probably challenging from a systemic perspective. So, the fta, not anyones concept of an fta. Its a genuine workaround. As a pragmatic workaround, politically that seems found, but deeply undercuts the idea what it would mean that you have to have a Free Trade Agreement with the u. S. In order to get access to the tax credits. I think we will see a lot more of that going forward. The final thing ill say, i think that this notion of requirement that builds on trade principles, decided in force and u. S. Efficiency stats have been around for a while and youve written tons of that better than i do, and its possibly now going to play, whereas i think that was constrained by towards multilateralism and so forth, i think thats more central. A couple more questions on this side. And in the back, in the glasses. While were waiting for this, let me ask you, on international finance, of course is not part of the ira, but is a critical part of the Biden Administrations Climate Policy. What, you know, the administration has made promises it has not been able to keep. What do you make of the fact that it has not even pledged in the other week to the gcs. U. S. Didnt pledge. This is all up for congress. Is there any way for the u. S. To meet its promises . Ill be fast with that. I think its difficult to get anything through congress. The house doesnt have a speaker right now. We cant seem to fund the government. Were looking at another shutdown, the only way to make a pledge if we could find a way to redirect other funding. And i dont know the particulars behind that, but in appropriation looks less than likely. I dont want to, you know, put all of this on, you know, congress right now because in the past it seems that this administration has not fought for money, right . There was a billion dollars, that im going to mess up the original ask, but a sliver of what was asked for. That is an indication that someone didnt fight and that is likely the administration. Why is the you know, do you think thats true . Are they not fighting for this money . A good question. I think that the administration has a lot of fish to fry in a difficult environment. I admire what they were able to do and wish on this front and others theyd been able to do more. What went on the inside, who fought for what, i dont have the view into that. Theres been so much to do and a fairly narrow political road through which to drive. In the back . Is the mic working now . Take two. Im erica, with the institute for governance and sustainable development. My question is for joshua, but for everyone, you spoke about the wto, whos dispute mechanisms are available to state parties. Im wondering to what extent do the protectionist provisions of the ira make the u. S. More vulnerable to challenges, legal challenges from private entities under investor state dispute settled agreements and others. Lets take one more and do them in tandem, we only have a couple left. In the front on the same side. Thanks. John. You alluded that the u. S. Had an an opportunity to lead in Nascent Technology on carbon capture, but with what established technology, the announced solar is two giga watt and chinese is 30 giga watts, a lot of economy to scale and learning effects. Are we a dog chasing a bus thats accelerating and if so, whats the chinese reaction to that . So, lets first look at the legal implication. Short answer, good question. I dont know. Im trying to think through where we negotiated and preinvestment clauses and i dont know that tax got caught up in that so you were protecting investment and giving trade, but i dont know for trade tax credits under the ira. Id have to look at that. Ken, can we catch up . Im not optimistic over the short run. I think the u. S. Has tremendous technological dynamism and china has a big head start and rapid in Technology Development. Look at the battery sector, look at evs as a whole in a lot of areas, it isnt just that they can produce for less money on the large scale, they keep improving the product and theyre going to be directing that now very rapidly, as much as they can, towards exports. Exports to europe for higher end stuff and with their belt and Road Initiative pushing out more and more clean energy, clean transportation and that kind of thing as a component of that. Its going to be much cheaper than we can do so weve to, you know, weve got to noodle through that and figure out how we can leverage what theyre doing partner where we can, have our own Creative Industry go to work and as mentioned earlier, of the workers, you know, what kind of labor force do we have for that. At the higher end, are we getting enough people with the necessary education and skills coming to the United States to live here . Weve always been very good at that in the past. Were not as good as that recently and we need we really need to address that. Well, i have a lot more questions and im sure you do, too. But here is where we have to stop. Thank you all so much. This was a great discussion. Thank you. [applause]. [inaudible conversations]. [applause] i think its hard to summarize the whole day, but i think that one thing thats clear is that a lot is being done, but we can agree, also, a lot still remains to be done, but im encouraged by the ramping up of conditions that were seeing and in the u. S. With the ira and what it could mean for the rest of the world as we work towards trying to secure the planet for the next generation. So, here at brookings, were going to continue doing what we can, our part. And also ramping up our work on climate. Well continue to monitor the ira and also its implications for the rest of the world and also tracking progress, globally, toward the net zero ambition that we have. I think you can follow all of our latest research analysis, commentaries, on our brookings website called planet policy where you can also sign up to receive those updates. And i encourage you, also, to check out climate, the podcast here, and last but not least, i think id like to thank all the colleagues who really work hard to make today possible. Central communication led here and along there sitting in the back and all the other people that i cant name in the short period of time that we have. Id also like to thank Samantha Gross for her leadership working with other scholars to bring us together and put this event up and to you all for sticking with us for the entire morning. A round of applause again. And were adjourned. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] live sunday, november 5th, on in depth, author and former a. C. L. U. President , Nadine Strossen joins book tv to talk and take calls about civil rights, free speech, censorship and more. Shes the author of defending pornography, hate, and recently published free speech, what Everyone Needs to know, joining the corporation with your phone call facebook comment and text in depth with Nadine Strossen, live, sunday, november 5th at noon eastern on book tv on cspan2. Monday, watch cspans series and partnership with the library of congress. Books that shaped america, will feature the novel my antonia part of the prairie trilogy. The trendship of a boy and known for the west, and melissa homestead has taught about willy and her book for many years and will join us on the program. Watch books that shaped america, monday, live at 9 p. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now, our free mobile video app or online at cspan. Org and be sure to scan the qr code to listen to our companion podcast. You can learn more about the authors feature. A healthy democracy doesnt just look like this. It looks like this, where americans can see democracy at work, when citizens are truly informed, our republic thrives of the get involved from the source. On cspan, unfiltered, unbiased, word for word, from the Nations Capital to wherever you are, because the opinion that matters the most is your own. This is what democracy looks like, cspan powered by cable. And the senate is about to gavel in for the day. Members are expected to vote on a measure from senator rand paul to withdraw u. S. Troops from the west african country and later consider a resolution on antidiscrimination from the nutritional food service. Now to the senate here on cspan2. Chaplain, dr. Barry , will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. Almighty god, each day it seems we face new challenges, unexpected hurdles, and tragic realities. Have mercy upon us and