Its Time for the Arnold To Be Back - as Climate Czar

Living in the Hudson Valley area of New York, my wife and I have spent the last three weeks watching our neighboring communities get flooded from non-stop storms.?A bike trail that I had used last Sunday morning had a section washed away by that same evening. Meanwhile, in parts of the southern US temperatures are staying well above 110 F (43 C). An image of Spain’s ground blood-red ground heat map from July 11th went viral, as parts of the country was reading over 140 F (60 C). My wife’s native Korea is also seeing devastating flooding in the mountain regions.

With all the other pressing global concerns (war in Europe, continued supply chain fallouts, global inflation, 2024 elections), the topic of climate change is spending too much time competing in public discussion at the worst time possible. Therefore, it is time for the Biden Administration to take their sustainability initiatives to the next level:? President Biden needs to create a cabinet level Secretary of Climate Security.?And there is one man perfect for the job. It is time for Arnold Schwarzenegger to be back.

In the last year, the Biden Administration has ensured the U.S. has the financial resources to tackle climate change via the Inflation Reduction Act, and the rest of the world is also acting with investment alacrity. But as we have seen in these last two weeks, it is simply not enough.

Taking on climate change is a war against time that we have lost precious ground on. A cabinet level secretary, whose small-but-effective office would solely be put in place to execute on tactics needed to move the President’s climate agenda forward, is the right solution. We have precedence.

On September 20th, 2001 I watched intently President Bush’s speech to a joint session of Congress on our plans to respond to the September 11th?attacks. I recalled a sense pride when I heard the President was not only creating an Office of Homeland Security, but his appointment of then Pennsylvania Governor and former war hero Tom Ridge deserved the standing ovation it garnered. In theory, the office (now Department) of Homeland Security should have never been needed in the first place. But the siloed barriers of communication between vital intelligence agencies and federal to local ground personnel commanded the immediacy of a barrier breaker. And the result had largely been successful in keeping foreign terrorist activity at bay within the U.S.

When evaluating the touch points on climate within the context of the U.S. Government, we see that the Departments of Energy, Commerce, Agriculture, Defense, and State all play a crucial role. Each Department would appoint an Undersecretary to the new Department of Climate Security (DCS)?that would coordinate and prioritize each vision. The work that the Department of Energy under Secretary Granholm has been doing in this administration has been truly a catalyst to move climate solutions forward.?And they have worked in lockstep with other departments. But having another voice in the administration would act as an accelerant to these policy executions.?

So why is Arnold the perfect person to lead this initiative, when seasoned politicians like John Kerry are out there working with countries like China on a coordinated climate response? My podcast partner Lucas Finco has coined the term that the climate fight is in “mid-transition,” where projects and plans are spending too much time being lost in bureaucratic shuffles. An off-shore wind project on Lake Erie in Ohio has been delayed for years because of an apathetic state legislature is not working hard enough to make it happen. All of the global oil majors have quietly been revising down their carbon abatement targets, while reaping the rewards of higher petrol prices.

Arnold is the perfect person to make the visits to the state legislature chambers and big oil boardrooms and?explain they need to step up the efforts immediately. Arnold meeting with world leaders would get page one headlines in a way others cannot achieve. He also knows how to get departments and agencies to work together. Arnold was not only an effective governor of California, but he is also a Republican. With the political noise of the 2024 U.S. elections getting louder by the hour, President Biden making an aisle-crossing appointment would further help this country and our climate fight to ?rise above the political rhetoric.

In recent days we have seen Arnold’s passion for addressing climate play out. He said we need to change the vernacular from ‘climate change’ to ‘pollution’ to make it more relatable to citizens. While I disagree with that specific wording, he is dead on in making climate messaging relatable (just in case the sweltering heat and increased annual hurricane intensity isn’t doing the trick).

Tackling climate change should not take a backseat to the issues of the day that are impacting all citizens of the world. In fact, tackling climate change should be justifiably interwoven into the myriad of solutions for many of the worlds other issues. Having a Secretary of Climate Security is a powerful solution. Having Arnold Schwarzenegger lead this effort can literally save this planet.?President Biden should not waste a moment.?

Eric Planey is CEO of SolaBlock, a Western Massachusetts & New York Capital Region clean and construction technology start-up, and he is co-host of The Pirates of Cleantech podcast.