Recent Interviews
![Financial Times Logo](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logo_FinancialTimes_square-300x298.png)
Oil and gas profits triple under Joe Biden even as industry decries him
Profits for the biggest US oil and gas producers have almost tripled under President Joe Biden, even as the industry berates his administration’s “hostile” policies and warns that a second term would be “disastrous” for the…
![Protester outside CERAWeek](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/1200x800.jpg)
Biden’s LNG Pause Might Be a Model for Other Energy Dilemmas
The Biden administration Friday halted the approval of new licenses to export US liquefied natural gas. The freeze is expected to last months, giving the government time to review how additional shipments might affect the economy and climate. The moratorium…
![windmill](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_154342b9-23ca-46d5-b4e4-2e6646c5353b.jpg)
China may be close to a climate tipping point
If you want to be hopeful about the world’s chances of tackling climate change, look to China. It is such a force in the electric car market that, last year, for the first time, it became home to more than half the electric vehicles on the world’s roads. An equally…
![LNG Ship](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/https___d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net_production_80390d83-3c54-4db2-a074-35821460421d.jpg)
Joe Biden factors domestic energy costs into decision to pause LNG permits
Climate campaigners rejoiced last week when US President Joe Biden froze approvals for new liquefied natural gas terminals that export the fuel. But the White House hopes the “pause” in LNG permits will win it political kudos with a much bigger group…
![Protesters outside white house](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/unnamed-10.jpg)
Is Joe Biden a climate champion?
There is no doubt that climate activists scored a major win last week when President Joe Biden announced a pause in approvals of liquefied natural gas export terminals. In fact, Biden gave a nod to their pressure when making the decision by…
![A liquefied natural gas tanker and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/unnamed-9.jpg)
Biden administration freezes gas export approvals
The Department of Energy is pausing approvals of liquefied natural gas exports while it conducts an open-ended analysis of the impacts of the shipments — a move being blasted by fossil fuel groups and applauded by environmentalists who say…
![Worker looking at natural gas plant](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/462843546.jpeg)
Biden reins in gas exports that have raised both US prestige and climate fears
The Biden administration announced a freeze Friday on new export permits for natural gas while it studies their impact on climate change — despite those exports’ role in bolstering the U.S. economy and Washington’s influence in Europe…
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By attacking Biden on climate, the far left risks true disaster with a Trump win
When it comes to climate change, Joe Biden has done what Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did not — and now, what Donald Trump vows to destroy. President Biden has executed a deft policy strategy that joins job creation…
![John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/1832.jpg)
Goodbye Mr Kerry, farewell Mr Xie: end of an era in global climate politics
As the final fraught hours of the Cop28 UN climate summit approached last December, a small but vital meeting was missing from the official agenda. While thousands of grumpy delegates trooped the vast and glitzy Dubai…
![Joe Biden](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/JoeBiden-1587609807-e1691613196768.jpeg)
To Win in 2024, Biden Must Highlight Consumer Benefits of Clean Energy
President Joe Biden’s climate accomplishments thus far owe much to his framing of clean energy policy as an economic strategy. “When I hear climate, I think jobs,” he often says…
![hydrogen storage facility equipment](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/CFEWIDBZBUI63OFPBICOLXB5WY.jpg)
White House clean-energy spending boom puts Biden in the crosshairs
The Biden administration raised the stakes on its politically fraught bet on massive subsidies for nascent clean-energy technologies Friday, rolling out a plan for awarding billions of dollars in tax credits to the makers of…
![COP28 Stage](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/unnamed-8.jpg)
A quick fix from COP28 to address climate change? Mandatory methane cuts
After nearly three decades of negotiations, the annual United Nations climate talks concluded this week with a first: Its delegates finally mentioned the words “fossil fuels” in an agreement and the need to “transition away” from them…
![Simon Stiell and Sultan Al Jaber](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/5000.jpg)
‘The future is renewable’: How a huge gamble sealed Cop28 deal
Not long before the crucial final meeting of Cop28 climate summit, a seemingly chance meeting took place in the heavily guarded VIP lounge next to the main conference hall in Dubai. John Kerry, the US climate envoy…
![Demonstrators dress in the likeness of Donald Trump and others](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/2000x1333.jpg)
Trump’s Comeback Bid Haunts Climate Talks in Dubai
As US officials at COP28 try to convince other nations the world’s biggest economy will support them by cutting carbon emissions and building renewables, they’re being undermined by someone who isn’t even at…
![Methane burning](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/gasflare_shutterstock_Alexisaj.jpg)
Major Foundations Provide $450 Million for Methane Mitigation
One of humanity’s best chances of rapidly slowing climate change is to slash emissions of methane and other super pollutants — and a growing pile of philanthropic funding is being devoted to the cause…
![Coal mine in Datong](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/imrs-2-1.jpg)
Before China’s coal is even burned, its mines are warming the planet
To get a sense of the scale and severity of China’s addiction to coal, look no further than the scores of deep industrial mines and uncounted smaller pits dotted across the country’s north-central region, churning out more of the black rock than…
![Coal processing plant](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/90787004d7ed40ca89415698515148a8.jpg)
To avert climate disaster, we need firm commitments on cutting methane at COP28
The key goal of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) negotiations beginning in Dubai this week must be to limit fast-rising temperatures, to prevent runaway warming that could destabilize the…
![Number 28](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2000.jpg)
‘Enough of endless delays’: will Cop28 force a course change for the world?
If current growth in renewable energy continues, and if countries take action on cutting greenhouse gases such as methane, then next year could be the year in which greenhouse gas emissions at last reach their peak…
![Financial Times Logo](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logo_FinancialTimes_square-300x298.png)
COP28: What to expect at UN climate talks The future of fossil fuels and the question of who pays for climate damage will be up for debate
Tens of thousands of people are expected to descend on Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in the next few days for the UN’s COP28 climate summit where, during the next two weeks, negotiators will spend long hours haggling over…
![Climate protesters](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/climate-protest-1778358379-e1700859318735.jpg)
Kings and Popes Attending COP28 Is Good — But Climate Crisis Requires Powerful Grassroots Movements
It’s important that older figures of religious and cultural influence like Pope Francis and the UK’s King Charles will be attending the United Nations COP28 climate change negotiations in Dubai beginning this week. However, their attendance…
![Electric Vehicle Charging Graphic](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/unnamed-1.jpg)
Angst Grows in US Over China’s EV Dominance
China’s surging exports of cheap electric vehicles (EVs) have emerged as a focal point in already fraught US-China tensions, putting Washington on the defensive over safeguarding US industry. As China boasts EV sales of…
![Kelsey Rose Juliana](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/unnamed.jpg)
Biden’s fight against Juliana climate case is alienating young voters
President Joe Biden is struggling to regain his popularity with young voters who helped put him in the White House in 2020. A group of youth climate activists say they have an answer to the president’s dilemma: Biden’s Department of…
![Smoke and steam from coal plant in china](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/imrs-3-1.jpg)
One way to get China to clean up faster: build a ‘climate club’
The world needs a climate club. Next year will mark a decade since diplomats gathered in Paris, promising to cut the greenhouse gas emissions relentlessly warming the atmosphere. The resulting national policies bent the emissions curve…
![Orioles fan](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/TBS-L-ORIOLESOPENINGDAY-p1-20240328.jpg)
It’s easy to be romantic about this Orioles team
In “Moneyball”, the best movie about modern baseball, Brad Pitt portrays Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane who cleverly uses analytics and shrewd talent judgment to propel his low-rent A’s to the playoffs…
![EPA Administrator Michael Regan](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/unnamed-1.jpg)
Biden’s climate playbook: Propose strong rules, then soften them
As the Biden administration’s climate rules near the finish line, a pattern is emerging: The final regulations are weaker than the initial proposals. Last month, EPA removed existing natural gas plants from upcoming…
![Biden and Trump](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/news-illustration_trumpdonald_bidenjoe_092023mm-getty_trump.jpg)
Biden’s new energy rules must stop an existential climate threat: Donald Trump
In his first three years in office, Joe Biden has done more through legislation, regulation, and diplomacy to combat catastrophic climate change than any president in history. But Biden knows all too well that much of this…
![The Washington Post Logo](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/logo_WashingtonPost_square-294x300.png)
Biden should push plug-in hybrids, not just EVs
The battle for the climate will require electrifying America’s transportation system. But the Biden administration’s effort to push drivers into electric vehicles is unrealistic – and it risks setting back the country’s…
![Methane burning](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3979.jpg)
Fossil fuel firms must plug methane leaks to meet climate targets, warns watchdog
Fossil fuel companies must pay tens of billions to reduce the emissions of methane from their operations or it will be almost impossible to meet global climate targets, the world’s energy watchdog has warned…
![Donald Trump](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/download-7.jpeg)
How Trump could exit the Paris climate deal — and thwart reentry
Allies of former President Donald Trump have a plan to leave the Paris climate agreement and make it much harder for a future Democratic president to rejoin it. The idea: pull the United States out of the treaty that…
![Chevron Gas Station](https://paulbledsoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2657.jpg)
Biden backtracks on climate plans and ‘walks tightrope’ to court both young voters and moderates
Joe Biden, touted as the US’s first climate president, is presiding over the quiet weakening of his two most significant plans to slash planet-heating emissions, suggesting that tackling the climate crisis will…
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