Asia Inside Out Podcast: Climate Diplomacy Under a New U.S. Administration

Subscribe in iTunes ∙ RSS Feed ∙ Download ∙ Full Episode Archive

The 2020 presidential contest in the United States will feature two diverging policy approaches to climate change. The campaign of former Vice President Joseph Biden has proposed a proactive climate policy and U.S. leadership to coordinate global action, in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump, who is in the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change. 

But how will the coronavirus pandemic impact the global climate negotiations and the ability of a potential Democratic administration to enact bold climate action? And what is the scope for the U.S. leading ambitious global action given ongoing bilateral tensions with China?

In this episode of Asia Inside Out, The Asia Society Policy Institute’s Anubhav Gupta discusses what to expect on climate policy and diplomacy from a new U.S. administration with Thom Woodroofe, senior advisor on multilateral affairs to the president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Brendan Guy, manager of international policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. In a recent Asia Society Policy Institute issue paper entitled Climate Diplomacy under a New U.S. Administration, Woodroofe and Guy outline what a potential new U.S. administration would mean for the global fight against climate change and lay out a series of recommendations for a potential Democratic administration.

(This podcast was recorded before Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race and U.N.’s COP26 Climate Conference was postponed.)