Fmr. CA Gov. Jerry Brown on the Climate Crisis

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Do you think, as a seasoned politician, that we’re on the way to a tipping point that will affect politics in Washington?

FMR. GOV. JERRY BROWN (D-CA): No, I wouldn’t say we’re at a tipping point yet. I foresee arriving at one. But because of the deep dependence on oil, gas and coal for our whole civilization, for this television program, for our clothes, our cars, our houses, our whole existence has been dependent and fueled by oil, gas and coal. And now we’re being told — and it’s true — we got to get off it. Well, that’s going to take heroic effort sustained over decades. So, in face of all that, politicians are going to respond to the immediate. They’re not going to lose jobs. They’re not going to raise taxes. They’re not going to embark on anything too bold yet. So I think we’re going to have stops and starts. We’re going to have failures. We’re moving slowly in the right direction. But neither China nor the United States, nor the rest of the world has yet grasped the full magnitude of what the world is now facing.

AMANPOUR: When you lie awake at night, maybe having nightmares about this, what then do you think it will take? The stop-start, decades-long, sustained effort that you’re talking about, we don’t actually have the time for it. What do you think it will take, if anything, for a tipping point to be reached regarding this dependence on fossil fuel.

BROWN: Well, I — we are moving in the right direction conceptually, in people’s ideas in leadership positions. Eight years ago, there was virtually no coverage on mass media of climate change. Now it’s all over, with the floods and hurricanes and the fires in California and in other places in the world. So, we’re waking up. But it’s going to take more. I’m afraid — I’m not advocating. I’m just telling you. It is going to take more disasters, or more political deadlock, and more debates and more rhetoric between the United States and China, until, finally, these big nations and these big leaders start collaborating, cooperating at the level they should. The first test will be in Scotland at the conference of the parties. Can China and United States and Europe and India really do the right thing? Or are we going to have to spend another year waiting to get the message? I think it’s very much up in the air. I know President Biden is trying very hard. President Xi has set some ambitious goals. But it’s not enough. It’s not fast enough. So we’re going to have more fires, more floods, more disasters that you will be able to cover, unfortunately.