On Nov. 14 the White Pine Press conducted an exclusive interview with John Pournoor on climate policy prior to his International Affairs Forum (IAF) speech at the Dennos Museum. Pournoor has extensive experience in government affairs and is the founder and CEO of Government Analytica.

 

As climate change is widely understood by scientists to be a result of human activity, climate policy has been an increasingly discussed topic over the past decades. Many are concerned about the United States’ progress towards clean energy, as well as the trade-offs necessary to nurture that progress.

 

“I help organizations make government proposals. Those [lawmakers] who were receiving these proposals had a higher likelihood of accepting them if there was some evidence — especially data driven, analytical evidence,” Pournoor explained, “Over the last two decades, access to data that can prove that type of value has become increasingly more abundant. What my business does is basically works with those who want to create government proposals and tries to quantify the public value of those proposals to win the hearts and minds of policy makers.”

 

Pournoor stressed that good proposals and arguments are rooted in what he calls public value.

 

“I would say there are probably four or five different aspects of public value that are inspirational to policy makers. One, if you can make the government more efficient ... Two, if you can create economic activity in the community that would create more jobs, raise people's wages and quality of life ... if it brings innovation, something new and interesting that was not there before ... they would be supportive of that. If it has a positive societal impact, they would be supportive of that.”

 

Although the public value of clean energy is high, and the glaring negative impacts of climate change increase, Pournoor explained that climate policy is a highly complex issue with no simple solution. He stresses that the transition to clean energy has societal impacts on many different fronts that require in-depth thought.

 

While many progressive climate policy politicians focus on how the energy transition will create new jobs, Pournoor is more cautious, “If you're moving to producing more electric cars, your plants that do not produce electric cars are going to be decommissioned. What do you do with those workers? This is a really important topic, and we can't just focus on more electric cars without focusing on what the societal impact is going to be.”

 

Instead, Pournoor believes that transitioning to clean energy may require smaller incremental steps over a large period of time, “The energy transition we're talking about is so expensive and costly, that it has to be amortized over a large number of years … Sometimes the big ask is too much for any one entity, government or otherwise, to be able to take on.”

 

With the general scientific consensus being that climate change is a pressing and urgent issue, many are worried that there is no time for small investments and incremental steps to be made. According to a 2017 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) report, 70% of all emissions since 1988 have been created by just 100 companies, with many of them being some of the richest in the world, such as ExxonMobil and Shell. For some, it’s hard to believe that a swift transition to renewable energy is just too difficult for the richest companies in the world.

 

Pournoor suggests that in order to begin making the cost of clean energy more manageable, investments need to be made in the scientific field toward renewable energy.

 

“I would say in the renewable energy space, we need a lot more R&D and investigation to see how we can make higher efficiency batteries, a less expensive way of sequestering carbon, for instance ... We're just at the infancy of many of those technologies ... How do you create green technologies that are less costly, and more effective? I think there's a technical solution to that that has to be invested in.”

 

While everyone perceives public value differently, Pournoor encourages leaning into a public value perspective rather than an ideological perspective when advocating for issues.

 

“Nobody will be against doing things that have greater good for the community, for society as a whole. So I think talking about the public value of it, rather than the ideology or principle or perspective, to me, is a more palatable way to have a conversation about it.”

 

He stressed that when trying to converse about issues with people who have a different perspective, it is necessary to meet them where they are at. Approaching the conversation of climate policy from a public value perspective assists in that process and prevents them from feeling alienated.

 

“Every year, a new layer of evidence emerges ... It's a dynamic process. And so we need to constantly evangelize the cost, whatever the cost may be, and make sure that layer of knowledge that was just discovered is shared in a very practical, non condescending way to those who may be on the opposite side of the spectrum from where we stand. We have to describe the impact of what is happening in a way that people see value in it. And so that requires us, in a very emotionally intelligent way, to try to understand those who may not see a value in this, and try to meet them where they are.”