The path to lower energy costs is clean energy: White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy

Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita spoke with White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy about the global energy crunch, fuel costs, and clean energy as a solution to lower fuel costs.

Video transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: You mentioned that the conference is being held against a pretty challenging backdrop. There are real fears globally about the energy crunch that's happening. You look over in China, you've got a coal shortage shutting down some factory activity. Over in Europe, we've seen natural gas prices up more than 200% in the year. And then, here in the US, prices we haven't seen since 2014. Are you worried that the concerns around the energy crunch now could slow the action that's needed to cap global warming at 1 and 1/2 degrees?

GINA MCCARTHY: Well, I know that my colleagues in the White House are looking at this issue really closely. The two areas that are potentially impacted in the US are New England, my region of the world, as well as California. And in both instances, we're working with those states to identify opportunities to actually make sure that they don't have spiked energy prices and that we look for every opportunity to reduce energy demand as well.

So we're going to be working on this nationally. And internationally, the question will become whether or not we can convince countries that the path to a secure and stable future and the path to lower energy costs is actually clean energy.

So while you will have these times of opportunities, for some to say that we need more coal or other fossil fuels as our first line of defense, I think our argument would be that we're moving to a clean energy future in the United States. And that's our first defense against spiked energy prices. It's our opportunity to save every family in this country $500 a year in their energy costs. It is our opportunity to underpin a stable economy.

And if we can all get behind that, we can recognize that there's always going to be challenges confronting us. But if we keep heading in that path forward, we have an opportunity to deliver a good future for our kids and a healthy and sustainable economy for ourselves now.