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United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby could talk about climate change all day long.

The self-declared climate change “geek” took over the company’s top job in 2020 after serving as president since 2016. United recently launched a $100 million venture fund dedicated to developing the nascent industry for sustainable aviation fuel, a key component to making the airline industry more climate-friendly.

We talked with Kirby about his disdain for carbon offsets, whether the U.S. should have a carbon tax and why he doesn’t want United to stand out among its peers in trying to address global warming.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

United has pledged to reach net zero by 2050 by greenhouse gas elimination through things like carbon management. Can you lay out the company’s strategy for reaching that goal?

We say 100 percent green, not net zero. The primary way we’re gonna get there is through sustainable aviation fuel. What we’re really trying to do is build this industry. It’s de minimis today. They’re kind of still in an early R&D phase on these projects. But I think of SAF much like wind and solar were 30 years ago, when they were not cost competitive with fossil fuels. But because of large scale investment and government credits, they became that way.

Delve more into why you’re against carbon offsets.

There’s two things that are wrong with them. First, the majority of them are fraud. They’re planting trees or not cutting down trees, but they’re trees that were going to either be planted anyway or trees that were never going to be cut down.

Even if they weren’t a fraud, they are not scalable. Because they’re mostly planting trees, there’s just not enough room on the planet. If we planted every square inch of the planet with trees that could grow trees, it would account for less than five months of mankind’s emissions. Oh, and by the way, we would all starve to death, because we’ve covered up all the farms.

How do you get companies to not use carbon offsets, especially when, even like your industry, some industries are harder to decarbonize?

You have got to do real things. First, you have got to change the conversation around it. And so I view a big part of my role is talking about this issue. Because the more you talk about it, the more it makes a difference. And more people are starting to believe what I just said about carbon offsets. We also have to be realistic about what the timeframes are on actually making a difference on climate change. There are some things that are like aviation that are hard to decarbonize. It’s not going to happen overnight. If you push them to decarbonize immediately, they go to offset, because that is the only option.

We just have to be realistic about long-term solutions and making investments.

How do you think the airline industry is doing overall in working to avoid the worst effects of climate change?

It is a hard-to-decarbonize industry. But I think it’s leading, as it often does, in anything that’s technology, safety-related. I’m really encouraged in the last couple of years at the number of other airlines that are calling me and calling United and saying we want to learn more about what you’re doing because we want to do the same thing… I view this much like I view safety and while United is the leader around the globe today, I don’t want us to be the leader. I want everyone to be doing the same thing… We don’t view this as a competitive issue. We’re an open book.

SAF is being used for a very minuscule percentage of United’s flights at the moment. Is there a realistic path to getting it to be used for 100 percent?

There is, but it’s not an overnight path. This is an industry that largely doesn’t exist today. And we have to build it. That’s why we’re focused on…venture investing in companies that are trying to commercialize known chemical pathways to produce SAF but trying to commercialize and scale those.

It’s up to us to get the cost down to be competitive. SAF today is a lot more expensive than jet fuel. And so people say, well, we can never make this work. That’s what people said about wind and solar 30 to 40 years ago, and consumers didn’t say, I’m going to pay extra for wind and solar. We had investment in wind and solar, we drove the cost [down].

Do you see the IRA substantially helping airlines?

I think we will look back in 20 years and say that was some of the most impactful legislation that’s been passed in the last few decades. It really is driving real investment in sustainability, but also a better economy for the United States. The amount of money that’s going into SAF, hydrogen, carbon sequestration, nuclear, hopefully, ultimately, grid reform. Those are things that are real and going to make a real difference. It’s not so much about airlines, but it’s about what it means for creating the green economy here in the United States. It’ll be good for the environment, and it will be good for creating good jobs in this country and our economy. It’s all around good, good, good.

What do you make of the idea of putting a price on carbon?

I think that’s the only way we’re going to actually solve climate change.

Do you think it could pass legislatively?

It’s hard. It’s not right now. I’ve been talking about this for years with folks in D.C. It used to be Republicans were opposed, now Democrats are opposed. It’s just hard to get passed. I think we’re ultimately going to have to do it if we’re going to actually solve climate change. One of the other things that I think is great about a carbon tax is if you do it, you need to do obviously, a carbon border adjustment, as part of it. And if you do that, it actually winds up being good for the U.S. economy.

The U.S. economy is the most efficient in the world at producing a unit of GDP per unit of carbon. It does the right thing for climate but is also good for the U.S. economy. It’s hard politically, I recognize. There’s no near-term path for it. But it is the right thing to do.

You like to call yourself a climate geek. And I know you’re in favor of companies doing work to combat climate change, obviously. How does that play into how you think about the SEC climate disclosure rule?

I think the SEC should focus on financial reporting and this won’t help. Best case it will do nothing. A lot of ways it will make it worse. When they put these kind[s] of one-size-fits-all rules in place…you just have a cottage industry of how to game the rules. I say this as somebody that cares about climate change. I wish they would stay out of it.

How do you get your peers to do more on sustainability? Like in an ideal world, do they create funds too for investing in SAF? Or how does the industry as a whole work to build the capacity there?

I think the business community is much further ahead than the political community. This should not be a partisan issue. We need to get bipartisan support in Washington to get things over the line. I think the business community…they’re not all as geeky about it as me, but they understand the importance. The fact that the Business Roundtable supports a carbon tax is I think exhibit A, for the business community. We need the political community to catch up.

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– Alaska’s governor has signed legislation that would allow the state to make money from carbon offsets from companies expanding fossil-fuel production, the Associated Press reports.

– The intensity of greenhouse gas emissions declined by 30 percent from 2019 to 2021, according to a new analysis of public data. Bloomberg has that story.

– The Washington Post takes a look at the obstacles standing in the way of widespread adoption of the four-day work week.