Climate Plans Get Punched in the Face

About this episode

Tisha Schuller interviews Matt Baker about the challenges of balancing climate ambition with energy realities in California.

What you’ll get in this episode of Energy Thinks My most important conversations right now are focused on The Problem Solvers—those civic leaders squeezed between the climate ambition of their constituents and energy reality. In this episode, I sit down with Matt Baker, Commissioner at the California Public Utilities Commission , to talk about what Problem Solver leadership looks like on the front lines of climate ambition: California. In few places have The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition faced The Moment more clearly than in California. This conversation is important to you for a few reasons: * Matt’s the best kind of Problem Solver —a smart, devoted, pragmatic, experienced climate hawk willing to name trade-offs and argue for workable solutions. * He’s in the middle of the action. He sits at the center of some of the hardest questions in energy right now: what to build, how fast to build it, and who can afford the bill. * He thinks differently than we do. And (as you’ll hear) his view of the world—what matters, what is possible, what is urgent—is very different from yours. You need that diversity of thought. How does Matt address the yawning gap between the climate…

People in this episode

Host: Tisha Schuller

Guest: Matt Baker

Topics covered

• climate ambition
• energy transition
• leadership
• cost and reliability
• problem solving

Keywords

• climate plans
• energy transition
• Problem Solvers
• California
• cost
• reliability
• leadership

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: California Public Utilities Commission

Places: California

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