The Democrats may butt heads on climate policy details, but they all see growing risks to security, economy and health that the next president can’t ignore.
By Marianne Lavelle for Inside Climate News
In two nights of debates that seemed designed to highlight divisions among the candidates, the Democratic presidential hopefuls this week managed to display remarkable unity in their proclaimed commitment to aggressive action on climate change.
Barbed questions posed by a CNN panel produced sharp wrangling over the details of universal health care, immigration and crime. But when it came to decarbonizing the economy, few hard and fast differences surfaced.
“We have all put out highly similar visions on climate,” said Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden sought to fend off the charge that his plan was “middling.” Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio envisioned a manufacturing future centered around the electric car. Sen. Kamala Harris of California called for adopting a Green New Deal and getting the country to carbon neutral by 2030.
Yes, some of the moderates don’t like the Green New Deal. And the left-leaning politicians were more vociferous in their denunciation of the fossil fuel industry, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont accusing the corporations of “criminal activity that cannot be allowed to continue,” and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts vowing to take on a Washington that “works great for the oil companies, just not for the people worried about climate change.”
But those differences belie the candidates’ fundamental agreement that transformative policy is needed to address climate change, including that:
- emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil energy have to be brought to zero no later than 2050;
- an expansive and rapid economic transformation with special attention to the needs of workers is key; and
- trillions of dollars of federal investment will be necessary and worth the money given the scientific evidence that the alternative would be far costlier.
“I think it’s pretty clear from everyone on that stage that you can’t be serious about running for president if you are not committed to acting on the climate crisis,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, vice president for government relations for the League of Conservation Voters, who watched the sessions live from the Fox Theatre audience in Detroit.
