U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveils the Green New Deal resolution in front of the U.S. Capitol on February 7, 2019 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong / Getty Images
For all its posturing on climate change, the Democratic Party has long been weak on the actual policies we need to save us from extinction. President Barack Obama promised his presidency would mark "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow," and then embraced natural gas, a major driver of global temperature rise, as a "bridge fuel." Climate legislation passed in the House in 2009 would have allowed industries to buy credits to pollute, a practice known to concentrate toxic air in black and brown neighborhoods while doing little to cut emissions.
<p>Even this year, with interest in the issue at an all-time high, the candidates the <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Democratic_Senatorial_Campaign_Committee" title="Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee" target="_blank">Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee</a> endorsed — like Amy McGrath, who eked out a victory in Kentucky's Senate primary, and former-Governor John Hickenlooper, who handily won Colorado's — have evinced skepticism about the Green New Deal, a resolution pending in Congress to put trillions of dollars into a transition to renewable energy plus job-training for a new clean economy.</p><p>On June 4, however, when the Democratic National Committee's Environment and Climate Crisis Council released a rigorous set of proposals for the party's 2020 platform, it offered climate voters some hope. The 14-page document's solutions for the warming planet included investment in communities that suffer every day with the consequences of industrial waste, shoring up public health services and making sure everyone has enough to eat. It also advises changing the structure of the society that allows police to kill unarmed black people with relative impunity.</p><p>"There's just no way to address the climate crisis without taking on systemic racism," says Michelle Deatrick, chair of the council. "They're intertwined and integrally related."</p><p>But proposals are not a platform; they don't represent any official statement of purpose from the DNC on climate or anything else. The climate council, founded in August 2019 after party members failed to persuade Chairman Tom Perez to hold a climate debate, is but one of three groups involved in crafting the party's final climate policies. Another, the eight-member Biden-Sanders Climate Task Force, will offer recommendations from the likes of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and environmental justice leader Catherine Coleman Flowers. Then it's yet another committee that will draw up the actual climate platform with former Vice President Joe Biden, the party's presumptive nominee.</p>
<p>On its face, that process looks reasonable: A task force and a council inclined to progressive ideals will push the ultimate deciders to take bigger steps toward a zero-carbon future. The problem, Deatrick says, is that once the platform has been agreed upon by that final, 15-member committee, it rarely changes when it goes before the full committee for approval.</p><p>"It's mostly a formal vote," she says. The state and local officials in the DNC, despite the crucial knowledge they bring from their jurisdictions, "historically have had no impact on the final product." But this year, with its great convergence of catastrophes that have defined the spring and summer of 2020, <em>has</em> to be different. "We need to have an inclusive and transparent process around the creation of the platform," Deatrick says. "This is a great opportunity for Democrats to show that we are the party of listening and deep considerations of ideas."</p><p>Among those ideas is that none of the problems we're facing can be disentangled from the others. "The nature of environmental problems is bound up in the history of race in America," says Adrien Salazar, senior campaign strategist for climate equity with the social-justice think tank Dēmos. "The only way that [polluting] industries have been viable at all is because there are communities where they can pollute, places that have ended up being the sacrifice zones for the rest of America."</p><p>Racial inequality, he says, "undergirds the very fabric of American society."</p>
<p>"You can't have climate change without sacrifice zones,"<a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/racism-killing-planet" title=" wrote" target="_blank"> wrote</a> Hop Hopkins, director of strategic partnerships for the Sierra Club, in a recent essay. "And you can't have sacrifice zones without disposable people, and you can't have disposable people without racism."</p><p>Robert Bullard, the author and researcher often called "the father of the environmental justice movement," has found that toxic hot spots across the U.S., from Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" to the refinery rows of Texas, <a href="https://drrobertbullard.com/african-americans-on-the-frontline-fighting-for-environmental-justice/" title="align closely" target="_blank">align closely</a> with Jim Crow housing segregation and other discriminatory zoning practices. "America is segregated," he says, "and so is pollution."</p><p>The injustice bleeds into public health and disease transmission: The COVID-19 virus<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20061713v1" title=" travels" target="_blank"> travels</a>, scientists hypothesize, on the sooty particles that blight communities on the front lines of industrial pollution. Those same places emit the greenhouse gases warming the atmosphere. In other words, it's not just pre-existing conditions causing the disease to hit harder in black communities. It's literally the air people breathe.</p><p>There are people tasked with air-quality regulation who argue that the common air contaminants that make people sick – the ground-level ozone that irritates lung tissue, the particulate matter that triggers cancer – belong to a different category than the greenhouse gases that trap the earth's heat. Mustafa Santiago Ali, vice president of environmental justice, climate and community revitalization for the National Wildlife Federation, remembers hearing as much during the 24 years he spent at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "I've had these conversations with some of the best scientists in the world," he says. "And what I know is that it is impossible, <em>impossible, </em>to hit the numbers that we need to hit to win on climate change if you're not focused on environmental justice."</p>
<p>Fossil-fuel infrastructure, for instance, blights "lower-wealth communities," Santiago Ali says. "So if you focus on that, you're going to begin to minimize the impacts of oil and gas." Pipelines cut through indigenous land in the Midwest and end up on Louisiana's Gulf Coast. "If you stop those pipelines, you stop the climate-killing export of oil."</p><p>Cars and trucks drive global warming, too, and their proliferation is made possible by "policies of running highways through certain communities, moving wealth into certain communities and dropping off pollution in lower-wealth communities along the way." Writer Peter Simek has <a href="https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2016/03/the-racist-legacy-of-americas-innercity-highways/" title="noted" target="_blank">noted</a> that you can find the locations of Dallas' Freedmen's Towns — communities established by emancipated slaves during and after the Civil War — by following the highways engineers built on top of them. "Some of the most powerful planners in America were forthright about their intention to use their power as transportation engineers to rewire a society built on racial and economic segregation," he wrote.</p><p>If you stop dehumanizing people in order to pollute, you stop degrading the environment, Santiago Ali says. If you don't, we literally won't survive. "There's no way of pulling climate out and saying, 'We're going to win on this but not focus on any of these other issues," he says. "That's just bad arithmetic."</p>
<p>Whether the platform committee does better math depends on how well it responds to outside pressure: The group is diverse, but not necessarily progressive. (Journalist Emily Atkin in her newsletter<a href="https://heated.world/p/dnc-snubs-progressive-climate-activists" title=" Heated" target="_blank"> Heated</a> has broken the group down in a useful<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PloB-PNkeg8j2s0UFFnFFPfcoxTMalI8S6pm8PhrVJ0/edit?usp=sharing" title=" spreadsheet" target="_blank"> spreadsheet</a>.) Fear surrounds this election — fear that pushing too hard on climate and racial injustice both will alienate white voters of the Rust Belt; fear that people will equate an expensive clean energy transition with the loss of jobs in oil and gas. Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mineworkers Union, told<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-climate-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-democratic-party-irked-by-councils-insurgent-climate-plan-sources-idUSKBN23M1DO" title=" Reuters" target="_blank"> Reuters</a> that the circulation of the climate council's policy recommendations "has already cost Democrats potential votes in places like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan."<span></span></p><p>Deatrick, who in addition to her environmental work is a longtime union supporter from Michigan, isn't worried. "We have to walk the talk," she says. "We have to make sure that we commit to policies that support those workers, replace pensions, provide health care." What she's learned on three months of listening tours around the country is that people are less afraid of economic transitions than they are of the chaos a changing climate will bring.</p><p>"We have a real opportunity to reinvigorate the part of the electorate – which is the vast majority of Democrats and Independents as well – who rate the climate crisis among their top priorities," Deatrick says, along with health care and racial inequality. She wants to make sure that when the draft of the climate platform is drawn up, those people are heard. The DNC "has not laid out what that listening process will be," she says. "And we don't have much time left."</p>
<p class=""><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <em><a href="https://capitalandmain.com/" target="_blank">Capital & Main</a></em> <em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., along with affordable housing advocates and climate change activists announce the introduction of public housing legislation as part of the Green New Deal outside the Capitol on Nov. 14, 2019. Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
When former Vice President Joe Biden effectively clinched the Democratic nomination in April, one major concern for the climate movement was the fact that his plan for tackling the issue was less ambitious than that of some of his primary rivals.
<p>But Biden signaled a willingness to boost his climate platform. And now, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/green-new-deal" target="_self">Green-New-Deal</a> champion Representative <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/alexandria-ocasio-cortez" target="_self">Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez</a> (D-NY) has agreed to serve on a panel helping him shape his plan to address the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>"She made the decision with members of the Climate Justice community — and she will be fully accountable to them and the larger advocacy community during this process," a representative of the Congresswoman told <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden-climate/democrat-ocasio-cortez-will-serve-on-bidens-climate-change-panel-idUSKBN22P0F8?fbclid=IwAR1sVcrqWBpfV6rxppA6z8u8IA4104nCx1JmVhLogxJduRJsJjDk_R_PdU4&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook" target="_blank">Reuters</a> by email Tuesday. "She believes the movement will only be successful if we continue to apply pressure both inside and outside the system."</p>
<p>Ocasio-Cortez has made a name for herself in Congress as an <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/green-new-deal-ocasio-cortez-2628265318.html" target="_self">advocate</a> for a Green New Deal to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels while providing jobs and supporting greater equality. In the primaries, she endorsed Independent Vermont Senator <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bernie-sanders" target="_self">Bernie Sanders</a>, whose climate plan promised $16.3 trillion for a Green New Deal-type mobilization and earned a 94 out of 100 on <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/" target="_blank">Greenpeace</a>'s <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/climate2020/" target="_blank">climate scorecard</a>. Biden's initial plan, meanwhile, promised only $1.7 trillion and earned a 72 from Greenpeace.</p><p>But when Sanders, the last major primary contender to drop out, endorsed Biden, the campaign announced a series of task forces that would work to bring together supporters of the two candidates on issues from health care to criminal justice to the economy, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/12/politics/ocasio-cortez-biden-campaign-task-force-climate-change/index.html" target="_blank">CNN explained</a>. It is the climate-centered of these task forces that Ocasio-Cortez will be serving on, as Biden himself confirmed in an interview with News8 in Las Vegas Tuesday.</p>
<p>"I'm working with Bernie and with his people. And so, and we've made some changes. We've listened to Bernie supporters and, you know, for example, we have Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, she is on one of the panels," Biden said.</p><p>A source with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that Ocasio-Cortez would actually be co-chairing the panel.</p><p>Ocasio-Cortez spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/aoc-joins-biden-s-climate-policy-panel-n1205886" target="_blank">NBC News</a> the Congresswoman would be representing Sanders on the panel.</p>
<p>When the panels were first announced, Sanders explained them as a way to unify the Democratic party's progressive and moderate wings.</p><p>"It's no great secret out there, Joe, that you and I have our differences, and we're not going to paper them over. That's real," Sanders said, as CNN reported. "But I hope that these task forces will come together utilizing the best minds and people in your campaign and in my campaign to work out real solutions to these very, very important problems."</p><p>Biden told News8 he was reaching out to Sanders supporters, but said their positions were not as far as voters may have believed.</p>
<p>"My message to all — and what they're finding out now that the nomination process is de facto over, they're finding out the positions I had on an awful lot of things were not accurately characterized and they're feeling more comfortable with it," Biden said, as NBC News reported. "But I'm listening. I'm here, I need them, and I hope they all will join us."</p><p>President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a>, who Biden will be running against in November, has not taken any steps to address the climate crisis and has a Greenpeace score of zero.</p><p>"Trump denies the reality of the climate crisis and is actively promoting fossil fuels while weakening existing climate protections. His Cabinet is filled with former coal and oil lobbyists. Trump gets an 'F' for putting our most vulnerable communities — and our very futures — at risk," Greenpeace wrote.</p>
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Bernie Sanders, Candidate With Most Ambitious Climate Plan, Drops out of 2020 Race
09 April
Politics
Bernie Sanders announces he is suspending his campaign via a livestream Wednesday. berniesanders.com via Getty Images
Bernie Sanders, the Independent Vermont Senator who campaigned for aggressive action on the climate crisis and environmental justice, has dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary race.
<p>His announcement, made Wednesday morning during a conference call with his entire staff, means the more moderate former Vice President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/joe-biden" target="_self">Joe Biden</a> will face off against President <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_self">Donald Trump</a> in November, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/08/bernie-sanders-suspends-his-presidential-campaign-175137" target="_blank">POLITICO reported</a>. In a speech livestreamed to supporters, Sanders said his campaign had won the "ideological battle" on issues ranging from universal health care to climate action, but that he could see no clear way to secure the nomination.</p><p>"Together we have transformed American consciousness as to what kind of nation we can become, and have taken this country a major step forward in the never-ending struggle for economic justice, social justice, racial justice and environmental justice," he told his supporters, according to a transcript provided by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/bernie-sanders-concession-speech.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p>
<div id="3a082" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="131662b2ba22cb4092191ade98d0ac98"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1247913426166280192" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Today I am suspending my campaign. But while the campaign ends, the struggle for justice continues on. https://t.co/MYc7kt2b16</div> — Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders)<a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statuses/1247913426166280192">1586360720.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>When Sanders first entered the race in February of 2019, he <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bernie-sanders-2020-2629410846.html" target="_self">promised</a> to release his own version of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/bernie-sanders-2020-2629410846.html" target="_self">Green New Deal</a>, an ambitious plan to transition the U.S. from fossil fuels to renewable energy while providing jobs and addressing inequality.</p><p>When his <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/sanders-green-new-deal-2639955047.html" target="_self">plan dropped in August</a>, many said it was the most progressive of the proposals of the Democratic candidates contending for the nomination. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/22/20828794/bernie-sanders-green-new-deal-2020-elections-climate-change" target="_blank">Verge summed it up</a> at the time:</p><blockquote>At $16.3 trillion spent over 15 years, Sanders' climate deal is by far the priciest of all the Democratic candidates left in the primary race. It's also arguably the most progressive — pushing for the US to have a carbon-free economy by 2050. The senator from Vermont also set a 2030 benchmark goal of reaching 100 percent renewable energy in the country's two most carbon-intensive industries, transportation and the power sector, by investing in solar, wind, and geothermal power. Sanders' plan would also declare climate change a national emergency, bring the US back on board with the Paris climate agreement, and commit $200 billion in funding to help developing nations cut their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.</blockquote>
<p>His plan earned a 94 out of 100 on <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/" target="_blank">Greenpeace</a>'s <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/climate2020/" target="_blank">climate scorecard</a> and an <a href="https://medium.com/sunrisemvmt/sunrise-movement-endorses-bernie-sanders-for-president-b6bdb68ba408" target="_blank">endorsement</a> from pro-Green New Deal group the <a href="https://www.sunrisemovement.org/" target="_blank">Sunrise Movement</a>.</p><p>But after early primary victories in New Hampshire and Nevada, Sanders began to falter beside the more moderate Biden, who won in South Carolina, and then in 10 out of 14 Super Tuesday states after other more moderate contenders threw their support behind him, POLITICO explained. Biden continued to do well throughout March, and now has 1,127 delegates compared to Sanders' 914, according to the most recent delegate count from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/delegate-count-primary-results.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>Biden's climate policies are more moderate than Sanders' as of now. His plan has a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/sanders-biden-climate-coronavirus-2645497732.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4" target="_self">much lower price tag</a> of $1.7 trillion dollars and a score of 72 out of 100 from Greenpeace. The organization applauded his commitment to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, investing in clean energy and restoring international climate leadership, but faulted him for not promising to ban all oil and gas drilling on public lands and to end all federal permits for fossil fuel infrastructure.</p><p>There is a chance Biden will ultimately run on a more ambitious plan, however. Sanders said he would keep his name on the ballot in the remaining primaries to boost his delegate count in order to have more influence over the party platform.</p><p>The Biden campaign is also working to bring in Sanders' supporters by incorporating some of his policies, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/biden-sanders-campaign-policy.html?auth=login-google" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. In a virtual fundraiser Wednesday, Biden hinted he would add some more progressive ideas to his climate plan, and POLITICO reports he is in talks with the Sunrise Movement.</p><p>The Sunrise Movement is also one of a coalition of youth-led groups that sent a letter to Biden urging him to endorse certain policies including a Green New Deal.</p>
<div id="5dfc4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d3a9b1cd7c33c70dcdf68530984b5c77"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1248011402494631936" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">.@JoeBiden is now the presumptive Democratic nominee.
But he wasn’t able to win over the vast majority of voters u… https://t.co/VXaw3P2lQv</div> — Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@Sunrise Movement 🌅)<a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/statuses/1248011402494631936">1586384079.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>"If Joe Biden is going to be the nominee on the Democratic side, we are going to champion Joe Biden and put all muscle behind" his election, Sunrise Movement Executive Director Varshini Prakash told The New York Times. But then she addressed Biden directly, suggesting he also had work to do. "You haven't earned our vote yet," she said.</p>
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Essential farm workers continue to work as Florida agriculture industry struggles during coronavirus pandemic. Joe Raedle / Getty Images.
By Liz Carlisle
This opinion piece was originally published by Yes! Magazine on March 30, 2020.
As the coronavirus crisis has laid bare, the U.S. urgently needs a strategic plan for farmland. The very lands we need to ensure community food security and resilience in the face of crises like this pandemic and climate change are currently being paved over, planted to chemically raised feed grains for factory farm animals, and acquired by institutional investors and speculators. For far too long, the fate of farmlands has flown under the radar of public dialogue—but a powerful new proposal from think tank Data for Progress lays out how a national strategic plan for farmland could help boost economic recovery while putting the U.S. on a path to carbon neutrality.
<p>The new Data For Progress <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/memos/land-access-for-beginning-disadvantaged-farmers" target="_blank">memo</a> builds on the Green New Deal <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text" target="_blank">resolution</a>—a sweeping proposal to build out a carbon neutral economy, inspired by the package of Roosevelt administration social policy that lifted the United States out of the 1930s Depression and created the largest middle class in history. The Green New Deal, advocates say, would mobilize similar infrastructure and jobs programs, but with a focus on climate mitigation and resilience, and a more broadly construed focus on equity. (While the original New Deal met many goals expressed by organized labor, it failed to address racial inequality).</p><p>Yet this latest Data for Progress memo, published today, hearkens back several decades before Roosevelt's presidency. Reopening conversations that were front and center during Abraham Lincoln's time in the White House, the memo proposes one of the most promising strategies yet offered for meeting climate targets while building broad-based economic prosperity: a systematic national policy to facilitate land access for small farmers.</p>
Lincoln’s Unfinished Business
<p>Farmland ownership has not followed the path that President Lincoln envisioned, explains the memo's co-lead author Meleiza Figueroa, a Ph.D. candidate in geography at University of California, Berkeley and faculty-owner of the Birmingham-based Cooperative New School for Urban Studies and Environmental Justice. When Lincoln signed the Homestead Act in 1862, he promised small tracts of land to family farmers. Following emancipation, the Lincoln administration also promised "40 acres and a mule" to formerly enslaved Africans.</p><p>However, land speculators cheated from the beginning of the homestead era, gobbling up multiple claims under different names. And "40 acres and a mule" were never provided to emancipated slaves, as President Andrew Johnson <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/the-truth-behind-40-acres-and-a-mule/" target="_blank">rescinded the promise</a> after Lincoln's assassination. Homestead claims <a href="https://www.nps.gov/home/learn/historyculture/abouthomesteadactlaw.htm" target="_blank">trickled to a close</a> in the early 1900s, and the federal government backed out of land policy, letting the market take its course. "When you look at the history of injustice in this country," Figueroa says, "it's all about land."</p><p>In the century-long absence of a coherent U.S. policy framework for farmland, Figueroa and her coauthors point out, several worrying trends have developed. For one, prime farmland has been paved over. According to the American Farmland Trust, 25.1 million acres of U.S. agricultural land—nearly the size of the state of Ohio—was converted to developed uses between 1982 and 2015.</p><p>Such land use change has significant climate implications. A <a href="https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/2012publications/CEC-500-2012-032/CEC-500-2012-032.pdf" target="_blank">2012 University of California, Davis study</a> that compared an acre of urban land to an acre of irrigated cropland found that the urban land generated 70 times as many greenhouse gas emissions. There's also an opportunity cost: Land-based carbon sequestration strategies like <a href="https://civileats.com/2018/10/11/fire-and-agroforestry-are-reviving-traditional-native-foods-and-communities/" target="_blank">agroforestry</a> and <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/02/11/two-states-are-leading-a-cover-crop-revival/" target="_blank">cover cropping</a> can't be adopted if the land is under concrete.</p><p>Second, the memo points out, what farmland remains has become ever more concentrated in the hands of large farms and institutional investors. A mere <a href="https://www.elementascience.org/article/10.1525/elementa.356/" target="_blank">3.2% of U.S. farms account for 51% of the total value</a> of the nation's agricultural production. Forty percent of U.S. farmland is rented, discouraging sustainable agricultural practices that require long-term management and secure land tenure. And farmers make up just <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/ag-and-food-sectors-and-the-economy.aspx" target="_blank">1.3%</a> of the U.S. workforce.</p><p>"There's an assumption out there that this is just the forward march of progress," Figueroa says. " 'Who wants to be a farmer anymore?' Actually, a lot of people want to be farmers now—especially young people who are aware of the effects of climate change and also not satisfied by alienating office labor. Why not offer the opportunity for meaningful and gainful work that is beneficial to everybody, to people and planet?"</p>Racial Injustice Plays Out on the Land
<p>The absence of a coherent U.S. land policy can be blamed for some of the current problems with farmland concentration, say the authors of the Data for Progress memo. But co-lead author Leah Penniman, founding co-director of Soul Fire Farm in Upstate New York, argues that the U.S. government has had a very influential de facto land policy over the past century, even if it wasn't articulated as such. "The very basis of U.S. land policy is rooted in the theft of land and the exclusion of people of color from land," Penniman explains. "This, of course, started with the genocidal stealing of almost the entire continent from the stewardship of Indigenous people … [and] throughout much of our history, there have been various state-level property ownership requirements that excluded people of color from being able to own property."</p><p> When people of color did amass property, Penniman says, they were targeted with violence.</p><p>"The Ku Klux Klan, the White Caps, and the White Citizens Council were responsible for lynching almost 4,500 people, many of whom were landowners, who they saw as having the audacity to get off the plantation and to want to stop sharecropping." The federal government also discriminated against black farmers through USDA programs, Penniman explains, resulting in a rapid decline of black farmers from 14% of the nation's farmers in 1910 to approximately 1% today.</p><p>Given that the average age of the American farmer is 57, and a significant share of the nation's farmland will soon change hands, Penniman and her co-authors argue, Americans have a short window of opportunity to rectify this unjust history while ensuring that farmland is conserved and that farmers have opportunities to combat climate change.</p>A Diverse Coalition for Reform
<p>The diverse coalition mobilizing around these shifts to farm policy is notable: Contributors to the Data for Progress memo range from staffers at predominantly white farm state groups like National Family Farm Coalition and Family Farm Defenders to racial justice leaders like Penniman and Figueroa to academics focused on economic policy.</p><p>What these diverse constituencies share, the memo's authors explain, is that they've all gotten the short end of the stick of land consolidation and are struggling to survive. Ironically, many family farmers have accumulated significant land over the past generation or two but are less economically secure, as they've taken on debt to keep up with the treadmill of overproduction stimulated by current agriculture policy.</p><p>"We need to give current family farmers, who are mostly white, a lot of credit," Penniman says. "Nobody wants to be complicit in racism and in that kind of harm and exclusion. I think it's in our best interest as a nation not to pretend that we're all the same or that we all need the same policies, but to really look truthfully at what needs to change. And we've found that having these honest conversations in our communities often leads to common ground."</p><p>As for how to turn this common ground into policy change, the memo's authors outline a couple different pathways. The 'low hanging fruit' option, explains contributor Adam Calo, a researcher at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, would be to expand three separate kinds of existing policies. For one, Calo believes, the U.S. should ramp up efforts to conserve farmland and protect it from development while limiting land investment by large corporations. Second, programs that incentivize farmers to use regenerative agricultural practices that combat climate change should be dramatically scaled up. The third and critical piece of this policy triad, Calo emphasizes, is equity: the U.S. must strengthen and enforce policies that ensure "Socially Disadvantaged Farmers" (the USDA's term for farmers subjected to racial discrimination) have equal access to all farm programs and particular set-asides to redress historic injustices.</p><p>More ambitious and transformative, the memo's authors suggest, would be to combine these objectives with a fully integrated land policy. Such a policy would include public land banks that could acquire land from retiring farmers and provide affordable access for farmers of color, new farmers, and farm cooperatives who pledged to use sustainable practices. It would also include a land commission, anchored by community-based institutions led by people of color, that would periodically assess that state of farmland access and make policy recommendations.</p>Good Stewardship at Scale
<p>Figueroa is excited about these more far-reaching approaches, which she sees as opportunities to mobilize the underutilized climate response potential in Black and brown communities. "How many Oaxacan farmers are in apartment buildings right now?," Figueroa asks. "If you gave them land, they know what to do with it. It's not like they forgot what to do with it once they crossed the border."</p><p>But getting farmers on land isn't enough, Figueroa and her coauthors emphasize. A successful Green New Deal for farmland must help ecological farmers stay on the land—and thrive. Penniman points to the success of payment for ecosystem services policies like those in Costa Rica, where farmers are compensated for providing environmental benefits on behalf of society—benefits like maintaining pollinator habitat, preventing soil erosion, and sequestering carbon. We already have such programs in the U.S., including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program, but they are funded at much lower levels than other farm programs that predominantly support industrial agriculture.</p><p>Overhauling farm programs by shifting current subsidies to instead compensate farmers for climate-beneficial practices—and establishing public procurement and supply management—would allow current family farmers to earn more money on fewer acres. At the same time, it would enable farmers to produce more human food (rather than biofuels and feed grain for factory farms) and provide more public benefits (such as drawing down emissions and improving watershed health). Remaining and degraded acres no longer needed by these now much more viable farms could be transitioned into land banks like those envisioned by the Data for Progress team, offering a just transition for both existing family farmers and landless farmers looking to contribute to climate mitigation and community food security by stewarding land.</p><p>"It's a win-win," Figueroa says. "People who want to put their labor into agriculture and struggling farmers who want support can actually join together as a community."</p>From Your Site Articles
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A 'Green Stimulus' Could Battle Three Crises: Coronavirus, Economic Injustice and Climate Emergency
24 March
Insights + Opinion
A solar energy project manager carries a panel to the roof ridge of a home at OceanView at Falmouth in Portland, Maine on Aug. 2, 2017. Ben McCanna / Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
"As a nation we face three converging crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic recession; the climate emergency; and extreme inequality."
<p><br/></p>
<p>That's the warning from progressive policy experts, climate leaders, and academics who have joined together to support a new "<a href="https://medium.com/@green_stimulus_now/a-green-stimulus-to-rebuild-our-economy-1e7030a1d9ee" target="_blank">Green Stimulus</a>" plan that calls for "at least $2 trillion that creates millions of family-sustaining green jobs, lifts standards of living, accelerates a just transition off <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a>, ensures a controlling stake for the public in all private sector bailout plans, and helps make our society and economy stronger and more resilient in the face of pandemic, recession, and climate emergency in the years ahead."</p>
<p>That's the warning from progressive policy experts, climate leaders, and academics who have joined together to support a new "<a href="https://medium.com/@green_stimulus_now/a-green-stimulus-to-rebuild-our-economy-1e7030a1d9ee" target="_blank">Green Stimulus</a>" plan that calls for "at least $2 trillion that creates millions of family-sustaining green jobs, lifts standards of living, accelerates a just transition off fossil fuels, ensures a controlling stake for the public in all private sector bailout plans, and helps make our society and economy stronger and more resilient in the face of pandemic, recession, and climate emergency in the years ahead."</p>
<div id="171d2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f3c70d33dfeb3a4d4819a32931a453a0"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1242104774583095301" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">I am proud to have co-authored this call to action for Congress, with @aldatweets @MarkVinPaul @johannabozuwa… https://t.co/wEj5hymAd5</div> — Thea Riofrancos (@Thea Riofrancos)<a href="https://twitter.com/triofrancos/statuses/1242104774583095301">1584975830.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The 11 co-authors — many of whom have ties to the think tank Data for Progress and various 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns — call for automatically renewing the stimulus at 4% of GDP annually, or about $850 billion, until the economy is fully decarbonized and the unemployment rate is below 3.5%. Their proposal aligns with the previously published "<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdMaV6F_o_ew3P6p1O50JcbFo_AsMoR2N_z6qfMFxEHfPSbRw/viewform" target="_blank">5 Principles for Just COVID-19 Relief and Stimulus</a>" that's backed by more than 300 environmental, justice, labor and other progressive groups.</p><p>Given that other advocates and groups are working on emergency efforts to stabilize the economy to prevent harm from the ongoing pandemic in an equitable way, the Green Stimulus plan aims to address "the longer-term challenge of jumpstarting economic recovery and transitioning to a more sustainable economy."</p><p>According to the letter, posted to Medium: "This is an inflection point for our nation. This is a pivotal moment to put tens of millions of Americans back to work, building a healthy, clean, and just future."</p><p>The plan, which points to the popularity of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text" target="_blank">Green New Deal</a> based on Data for Progress <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/memos%E2%80%A9" target="_blank">polling</a>, sorts proposed policies into eight categories:</p><ol><li>Housing, Buildings, Civic Infrastructure, and Communities</li><li>Transportation Workers, Systems, and Infrastructure</li><li>Labor, Manufacturing, and Just Transition for Workers and Communities</li><li>Energy System Workers and Infrastructure</li><li>Farmers, Food Systems, and Rural Communities</li><li>Green Infrastructure, Public Lands, and the Environment</li><li>Regulations, Innovation, and Public Investment</li><li>Green Foreign Policy</li></ol><p>Housing and infrastructure recommendations include massively expanding the federal Weatherization Assistance Program, increasing funding to and beneficiaries of Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, enacting the <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/green-new-deal-public-housing" target="_blank">Green New Deal for Public Housing Act</a> and creating a Climate Justice Resiliency Fund.</p><p>Labor-related policies include giving grants and no-interest loans to transit agencies and local governments "to complete their backlog of shovel-ready ADA-compliance and Complete Streets projects" and providing "<a href="https://berniesanders.com/issues/green-new-deal/" target="_blank">just transition benefits</a> for all workers in fossil fuel industries, including five years of wage replacement for displaced workers, housing assistance, job training opportunities, health insurance coverage, pension support, and priority job placement for displaced workers."</p>
<div id="96857" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="53107e8803980c03f8e1199fce565ef9"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1242121418818625536" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">There's going to be a stimulus and it's up to all of us to fight for it to center workers, communities, and the cli… https://t.co/pL2Enyl9m6</div> — J. Mijin Cha (@J. Mijin Cha)<a href="https://twitter.com/jmijincha/statuses/1242121418818625536">1584979798.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>In terms of the climate emergency, the plan calls for mandating "a rapid phaseout of fracking and offshore and onshore oil and gas drilling, end new extraction, and end fossil fuel exports." It also proposes creating a national clean energy standard through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency "that applies to all power providers including rural electric cooperatives, climbing steeply to 100% carbon-free energy by 2030."</p><p>As part of a nationwide <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable energy</a> transition, the letter highlights the importance of protecting the rights of workers to unionize, incentivizing employee ownership, "respecting Indigenous sovereignty, and ensuring no sacrifice of public safety." The proposal also features sweeping agricultural reforms to help battle the climate crisis, improve the lives of farmworkers, and boost access to healthy, affordable food.</p><p>The letter recommends changes to managing public lands and the environment more broadly, from directing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "to clear their backlog of beneficial dredge, habitat restoration, climate adaptation, and infrastructure maintenance projects" to giving state and local governments grants to create "'<a href="https://landscapearchitecturemagazine.org/2019/07/23/the-green-new-deal-landscape-and-public-imagination/" target="_blank">energy parks</a>' that combine recreation (e.g., walking and biking trails, swimming areas, etc.) with clean energy generation, storage and transmission infrastructure (e.g., wind turbines, PV panels and battery centers)."</p><p>Globally, the plan calls for the U.S. to support the growth of green technology as well as local and sustainable farming worldwide; ensure fair trade agreements centered on worker and environmental protections; end funding for fossil fuel infrastructure; and contribute more to the Green Climate Fund, perhaps through a progressive tax on the highest carbon-emitting polluters.</p><p>The more than 100 signatories include 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben; former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, now a professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health; climate economist Gernot Wagner of New York University; author Naomi Klein, co-founder of The Leap; filmmaker Avi Lewis, another co-founder of The Leap; economist Stephanie Kelton, a professor at Stony Brook University; Stephen M. Kretzmann of Oil Change U.S.; Andrew Bunker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research; and Drilled News editor-in-chief Amy Westervelt.</p>
<div id="10c25" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="45862ede761ca08aff4181b76822af75"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1242090858322825217" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We are facing the #COVID19 pandemic, economic recession, climate emergency, and extreme inequality. We need a massi… https://t.co/Y4wfiNs7b6</div> — Naomi Klein (@Naomi Klein)<a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/statuses/1242090858322825217">1584972512.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The proposal comes as U.S. federal lawmakers are negotiating a third package to address the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Senate Democrats on Monday — for the <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/23/senate-democrats-applauded-again-stopping-gop-corporate-bailout-leaves-americans" target="_blank">second time</a> in 24 hours — blocked a measure that critics <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/23/demands-workers-first-stimulus-grow-senate-gop-fails-ram-through-500-billion" target="_blank">charged</a> was a bailout for corporations which did too little to help workers impacted by the public health crisis. Meanwhile, progressive continue to demand <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/23/counter-corporate-handout-pushed-mcconnell-progressives-intensify-demand" target="_blank">#AJustStimulus</a> as a meaningful alternative that centers labor protections, struggling families, small businesses, and the nation's most vulnerable.</p><p>The Green Stimulus plan proposes requiring that "any bailouts or bridge loans to large corporations, like <a href="https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/-whitehouse-senate-democrats-request-requirements-for-airlines-and-cruise-lines-to-address-pollution-in-financial-assistance-package" target="_blank">airlines and cruise lines</a>, be contingent on economic, social, and ecological conditions: 10-year plan to substantially cut majority of carbon pollution with targets every two years; use funds to maintain payroll; government gaining long-term preferred shares or other equity in bailed out firms; provide $15 minimum wage within one year; no share buy-backs or dividends; set asides seats on corporate boards for labor representatives; maintain collective bargaining agreements."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/23/green-stimulus-demanded-battle-convergent-crises-coronavirus-economic-injustice-and" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) (C) chants with housing and environmental advocates before a news conference to introduce legislation to transform public housing as part of her Green New Deal outside the U.S. Capitol Nov. 14, 2019 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) took to the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday to chide Republicans for not reading the Green New Deal, which she introduced over one year ago, as The Hill reported. She then read the entire 14-page document into the congressional record.
<p>Republicans have frequently mischaracterized what is actually in the bill and argued that the ambitious proposal to stop the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate crisis</a> flies in the face of American values. The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres109/BILLS-116hres109ih.pdf" target="_blank">proposal</a>, which was sponsored by Ocasio-Cortez in the House and by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in the Senate in February 2019, has failed to come up for a vote in either chamber, as <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/26/watch-ocasio-cortez-reads-full-green-new-deal-resolution-house-floor-help-improve" target="_blank">Common Dreams noted</a>. </p>
<p>"But throughout this entire year, as we've discussed the Green New Deal, I've noticed there's been an awful lot of misinformation about what's inside this resolution, a tremendous amount of wild claims: everything from saying we're seeking to ban airplanes to ending ice cream," Ocasio-Cortez said on the House floor, as The Hill reported.</p>
<p>"And, as a consequence I've realized that many of my colleagues have never even read the resolution that they're speaking on," she added. "They haven't opened a single word of it — and it's actually only about… just 14 pages long. So I have decided that since some of my colleagues across the aisle could not for some reason read the resolution, that perhaps this hour would be spent best reading it to them, for the public record."</p>
<p>The Green New Deal looks to move the U.S. toward a net zero greenhouse gas emissions future "through a fair and just transition." The 10-year national mobilization plan looks to create millions of jobs through an investment in infrastructure, to ensure a sustainable future, and to protect vulnerable communities, as Common Dreams reported. </p>
<p>The cornerstone of the plan is the rapid and complete conversion to a 100 percent <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" rel="noopener noreferrer">renewable energy</a> system for electricity and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/transportation" rel="noopener noreferrer">transportation</a> by 2030. The resolution also seeks a full decarbonization of the economy by 2050, at the latest, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-green-new-deal-former-white-house-economist-1489234" target="_blank">Newsweek reported</a>.</p>
<p>Ocasio-Cortez also <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/democratic-debate-climate-crisis-questions-2645311804.html">shared her dismay</a> that Tuesday night's presidential primary debate was conspicuously absent of questions about the climate crisis.</p>
<p>"As I was preparing for this evening, I would be remiss but to say that last night we had a national Democratic debate and not a single question was asked about our climate crisis," she said, as The Hill reported. </p>
<p>The New York Democrat also prefaced her reading of the resolution by sharing data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that has made dire predictions for how the world will suffer if emissions are not reined in within the next 10 years, according to The Hill. </p>
<p>The Green New Deal has is now endorsed by over one hundred lawmakers across both chambers of the Capitol. Not a single Republican has backed the measure though, as Common Dreams reported. </p>
<p>Several of the Democratic presidential candidates have adopted the Green New Deal into their climate legislation proposals, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). </p>
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Six Democratic primary candidates participated in the ninth debate in Las Vegas Wednesday. Mario Tama / Getty Images
The climate crisis got its moment in the sun during the ninth Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas Wednesday.
<p>The six qualifying candidates discussed the issue for a full 16 minutes, <a href="https://grist.org/politics/climate-was-public-enemy-no-2-after-mike-bloomberg-at-nevadas-democratic-debate/" target="_blank">Grist reported</a>. The debate also marked the first time that a climate journalist was numbered among the moderators: Telemundo climate correspondent Vanessa Huac, who has covered environmental issues for more than 20 years.</p><p>"People in the United States and all over our planet are realizing that climate change is one of the most important issues of our times," <a href="https://news.wbfo.org/post/first-time-climate-journalist-will-moderate-presidential-debate" target="_blank">Huac told NPR Tuesday ahead of the debate</a>. "So, this is a great opportunity to really raise this issue and raise important questions to the candidates to see what are the plans, what are the proposals, how are they planning to face this existential crisis that we're facing."</p><p>This sense of public urgency around the issue is reflected in the pool of Nevadans who are likely to participate in the Democratic caucus Saturday. Eighty-six percent of them rated climate and the environment as very important or the most important issue of 2020, according to a <a href="https://www.lcv.org/" target="_blank">League of Conservation Voters</a> and <a href="https://nevadaconservationleague.org/" target="_blank">Nevada Conservation League</a> <a href="https://www.lcv.org/article/new-nevada-poll-climate-change-defining-issue-caucusgoers-especially-latinos/" target="_blank">poll released last week</a>. The poll also found that the issue came second to health care for most voters when deciding who to vote for. But for Latinx voters, who make up 20 percent of the Nevada voting block, climate was even more important than health care and immigration, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18022020/nevada-caucus-climate-change-among-latino-voters-vanessa-hauc" target="_blank">InsideClimate News reported</a>.</p>
<div id="b1051" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="81EU2R1582207511"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1230327285603012608" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">As we kick off climate talk in the #DemDebate, remember 86% of likely caucus-goers in Nevada think climate & the en… https://t.co/1RMNH0DvHK</div> — LCV – League of Conservation Voters (@LCV – League of Conservation Voters)<a href="https://twitter.com/LCVoters/statuses/1230327285603012608">1582167857.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>So how did the candidates address voters' concerns?</p><h3>Climate Solutions</h3><p>Wednesday's climate discussion was kicked off by Jon Ralston of the Nevada Independent, who pointed out that Reno and Las Vegas were among the fastest-warming cities in the country. He then directed his first question at former Vice President Joe Biden.</p><p>"What specific policies would you implement that would keep Las Vegas and Reno livable, but also not hurt those economies?" he asked, according to an <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/full-transcript-ninth-democratic-debate-las-vegas-n1139546" target="_blank">NBC debate transcript</a>.</p><p>Biden first focused on technical solutions, saying he would invest $47 billion in renewable energy and battery technology. He also said he would reverse President Donald Trump's environmental rollbacks and install 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations in every highway his administration built or repaired.</p><p>"And I would invest in rail, in rail. Rail can take hundreds of thousands, millions of cars off the road if we have high-speed rail," Biden said.</p>
<div id="e4c0f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2S6UK51582207511"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1230333813726814210" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">While calling climate change the existential threat facing humanity, @JoeBiden calls for greater investments in gre… https://t.co/AGBQMGwTiW</div> — LCV – League of Conservation Voters (@LCV – League of Conservation Voters)<a href="https://twitter.com/LCVoters/statuses/1230333813726814210">1582169414.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br>Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, meanwhile, touted his success shuttering 304 of 530 <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal</a> plants in the U.S. as part of his<a href="https://beyondcoal.bloomberg.org/" target="_blank"> Beyond Coal</a> campaign with the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a>. He also said he would rejoin the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement</a>.</p><p>Senator <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/elizabeth-warren" target="_self">Elizabeth Warren</a> (D-Mass.) repeated her argument that addressing climate change requires addressing corruption in government.</p><p>"The first thing I want to do in Washington is pass my anti-corruption bill so that we can start making the changes we need to make on climate," she said. "And the second is the filibuster. If you're not willing to roll back the filibuster, then you're giving the fossil fuel industry a veto overall of the work that we need to do."</p>
<h3>Fracking</h3><p>One major point of disagreement between the candidates was on whether or not to ban <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/" target="_self">fracking</a>.</p><p>Both Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-Minn.) and Bloomberg argued that <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/natural-gas" target="_self">natural gas</a> is a "transitional fuel" between dirtier fuels like coal and renewable energy. Klobuchar said she would review every natural gas permit on a case-by-case basis and only approve them if they were safe. Bloomberg also said it was important to make sure natural gas extraction was done properly to not release excess methane. But he said it was not possible to abandon the fuel.</p><p>"We want to go to all renewables. But that's still many years from now," Bloomberg said.</p><p>Sen. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bernie-sanders" target="_self">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-Vt.), on the other hand, has called for a fracking ban within the next five years, and addressed concerns that such a ban would hurt jobs. Sanders said the moment was too urgent not to act, and that the Green New Deal he supports would create as many as 20 million well-paying jobs.</p><p>"This is a moral issue, my friends. We have to take the responsibility of making sure that the planet we leave our children and grandchildren is a planet that is healthy and habitable," he said. "That is more important than the profits of the fossil fuel industry."</p>
<div id="eb565" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9M13JK1582207511"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1230337328205488128" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">"We are fighting for the future of this planet," said @BernieSanders. "And the #GreenNewDeal, which I support by th… https://t.co/kTosBHGPCM</div> — LCV – League of Conservation Voters (@LCV – League of Conservation Voters)<a href="https://twitter.com/LCVoters/statuses/1230337328205488128">1582170252.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Also on the issue of jobs, Warren was challenged on her plan to ban mining and drilling on public lands, which is an important industry in Nevada. Public lands are also potential sources of minerals like lithium and copper necessary for renewable energy technology.</p><p>Warren said she would make an exception for minerals that are needed to transition away from fossil fuels.</p><p>"If we need to make exceptions because there are specific minerals that we've got to have access to, then we locate those and we do it not in a way that just is about the profits of giant industries, but in a way that is sustainable for the environment," she said.</p>
<h3>China</h3><p>Another point of disagreement was how to respond to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/china" target="_self">China</a>, which is currently the world's No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases.</p><p>Bloomberg argued that it was important not to "go to war" with China on emissions but rather to negotiate.</p><p>"What you have to do is convince the Chinese that it is in their interest, as well. Their people are going to die just as our people are going to die. And we'll work together," he said.</p><p>But Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg argued for the need for "hard tools" to ensure emissions fell worldwide.</p><p>"I'm a little skeptical of the idea that convincing is going to do the trick when it comes to working with China," he said. "America has repeatedly overestimated our ability to shape Chinese ambitions."</p>
<h3>Environmental Justice</h3><p>Both Biden and Warren, unprompted, raised the issue of environmental justice.</p><p>"[M]inority communities are the communities that are being most badly hurt by the way in which we deal with climate change," Biden said while answering a question about his plans to hold fossil fuel executives accountable for their pollution. "They are the ones that become the victims. That's where the asthma is, that's where the groundwater supply has been polluted. That's where, in fact, people, in fact, do not have the opportunity to be able to get away from everything from asbestos in the walls of our schools."</p><p>Warren later spoke up to "make sure that the question of environmental justice gets more than a glancing blow in this debate."</p>
<div id="55a80" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="COU72T1582207511"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1230333782579871748" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">.@ewarren was the first candidate on the stage to bring up the impact of racist environmental policies on communiti… https://t.co/YPTK6WgYiI</div> — Indivisible Guide (@Indivisible Guide)<a href="https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam/statuses/1230333782579871748">1582169406.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>She touted her $1 trillion dollar plan to repair the environmental damage that had already been done to communities of color.</p><p>"We have to own up to our responsibility," she said. "We cannot simply talk about climate change in big, global terms. We need to talk about it in terms of rescuing the communities that have been damaged."</p>
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Democratic Candidates Face off on Climate in the Last Debate Before Primary Voting Begins
15 January
Politics
Tom Steyer (L-R), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) listen as former Vice President Joe Biden (3rd L) speaks during the Democratic presidential primary debate at Drake University on Jan. 14 in Des Moines, Iowa. Scott Olson / Getty Images
Six Democratic presidential candidates squared off Tuesday night in Des Moines, Iowa for the seventh primary debate of the season and the last before voting begins with the Iowa caucuses Feb. 3. The climate crisis tied with health care for the No. 1 issue important to Iowa voters when choosing a candidate, according to the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll. So how much attention did it get during the debate?
<p>A fair amount, <a href="https://grist.org/politics/at-the-7th-democratic-debate-candidates-took-every-opportunity-to-talk-climate/" target="_blank">Grist reported</a>. While CNN and Des Moines Register moderators didn't bring it up until the last half hour, the candidates themselves incorporated it into their answers early and often.</p><p>"Debate moderators may take ages to get around to climate change in these debates," Zoya Teirstein wrote for Grist, "but the candidates have gotten increasingly adept at weaving the issue into their answers to other questions. This time around, Wolf Blitzer, Abby Phillip, and the Register's Brianne Pfannenstiel could barely keep a lid on the climate action in the first half of the debate."</p>
<div id="9978e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="J08DNB1579096231"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1217291431544360960" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">10:39pm on the east coast, people are tuning out, parents are tucking their kids into bed...
@CNN: "Alright, let's… https://t.co/nSVYhqb4Tv</div> — Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@Sunrise Movement 🌅)<a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt/statuses/1217291431544360960">1579059868.0</a></blockquote></div><p>So how did the candidates stand on various climate-related issues?</p>
National Security
<p>The first climate mentions came in response to the first question, about which candidate was best prepared to be commander-in-chief.</p><p>Both former South Bend, Indiana Mayor <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/Pete-Buttigieg" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pete Buttigieg</a> and Sen. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/elizabeth-warren" target="_self">Elizabeth Warren</a> (D-Mass.) listed the climate crisis among new national security issues they would tackle as president, according to a transcript provided by the <a href="https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2020/01/14/democratic-debate-transcript-what-the-candidates-said-quotes/4460789002/" target="_blank">Des Moines Register</a>.</p><p>Philanthropist Tom Steyer brought up the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/australia-wildfire-deaths-2644394434.html" target="_self">wildfires in Australia</a> when asked how he would use military force as a president, suggesting that the climate crisis might require large international mobilizations.</p><p>"[T]here's a gigantic climate issue in Australia, which also requires the same kind of value-driven coalition-building that we actually should be using in the Middle East," he said.</p>Trade
<p>The next time the candidates brought up climate was during the discussion of a new trade deal struck by President Donald Trump with Mexico and Canada. Sen. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bernie-sanders" target="_self">Bernie Sanders</a> (I-Vt.) came out strongly against it, largely because it does not mention climate change.<br></p><p>"[E]very major environmental organization has said no to this new trade agreement because it does not even have the phrase 'climate change' in it. And given the fact that climate change is right now the greatest threat facing this planet, I will not vote for a trade agreement that does not incorporate very, very strong principles to significantly lower fossil fuel emissions in the world," he said.</p><p>Democratic lawmakers had pushed for a commitment to the Paris agreement to be included in the deal, but that did not make it into the final draft, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/politics/fact-check-january-debate.html" target="_blank">The New York Times pointed out</a>.</p><p>Sanders also fought back when Pfannenstiel tried to shift his answer from climate to trade more narrowly.</p><p>"Well, they are the same in this issue," he said, according to the transcript.</p><p>Steyer joined Sanders in saying that he would not sign the deal because it failed to mention climate.</p><div id="9a8a3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8OU2EK1579096232"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1217275336251015175" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We can do much better than a Trump-led trade deal that does not even have the phrase “climate change” in it.… https://t.co/t3iNjmP5WP</div> — Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders)<a href="https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/statuses/1217275336251015175">1579056030.0</a></blockquote></div>
'Managed Retreat'
<p>The first question directly raised by the moderators about the climate crisis brought up last spring's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/flooding-nebraska-bomb-cyclone-2631998694.html" target="_self">disastrous flooding</a> in the Midwest and focused on what candidates would do about farms and factories that could not be relocated.</p><p>The question first went to Buttigieg, who spoke generally about the need to act on climate until the moderators repeated the question.</p><p>"We are going to have to use federal funds to make sure that we are supporting those whose lives will inevitably be impacted further by the increased severity and the increased frequency," he said.</p><p>The question then went to Steyer.</p><p>"Look, what you're talking about is what's called managed retreat," Steyer answered. "It's basically saying we're going to have to move things because this crisis is out of control. And it's unbelievably expensive. And of course we'll come to the rescue of Americans who are in trouble."</p>Fracking
<p>Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) received some pushback from climate activists when she defended her decision not to call for an all-out ban on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking/" target="_self">fracking</a>.</p><p>"When it comes to the issue of fracking, I actually see natural gas as a transition fuel. It's a transition fuel to where we get to carbon neutral," Klobuchar said.</p><p>Her remarks come less than a week after a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/us-oil-gas-emissions-2644654513.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3" target="_self">study</a> found that new oil and gas emissions projected for the next five years could nearly cancel out the decline in coal emissions, partly enabled by the fracking boom and the falling price of natural gas.</p><p>"I cannot believe I am listening to<a href="https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar" target="_blank"> @amyklobuchar</a> talking about fracked gas as a bridge fuel in 2020," Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash tweeted in response.</p><div id="dce9f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="BYCNS21579096232"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1217291975226986497" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">I cannot believe I am listening to @amyklobuchar talking about fracked gas as a bridge fuel in 2020.
#DemDebate</div> — Varshini Prakash 🌅 (@Varshini Prakash 🌅)<a href="https://twitter.com/VarshPrakash/statuses/1217291975226986497">1579059997.0</a></blockquote></div>
Climate Credentials
<p>Over the course of the debate, the candidates attempted to position themselves as the best person to take on the climate crisis in office.</p><p>Steyer emphasized that climate was his top priority.</p><p>"And I'm still shocked that I'm the only person on this stage who will say this. I would declare a state of emergency on day one on climate," he said.</p><p>Warren, meanwhile, painted herself as the best person to get to the root cause of decades of climate inaction.</p><p>"Mr. Steyer talks about it being problem number one," she said. "Understand this, we have known about this climate crisis for decades. Back in the 1990s we were calling it global warming, but we knew what it was. Democrats and Republicans back then were working together because no one wanted a problem. But you know what happened? The industry came in and said, we can make big money if we keep them divided and make no change. Priority number one has to be taking back our government from the corruption. That is the only way we will make progress on climate, on gun safety, on health care, on all of the issues that matter to us."</p><p>Sanders, for his part, pointed to his plan for a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/green-new-deal" target="_self">Green New Deal</a> to transition to 100 percent renewable energy in 10 years.</p><p>"If we as a nation do not transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, not by 2050, not by 2040, but unless we lead the world right now — not easy stuff— the planet we are leaving our kids will be uninhabitable and unhealthy," he said.</p><p>Former Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, pointed to his legacy.</p><p>"[B]ack in 1986, I introduced the first climate change bill — and check PolitiFacts (sic); they said it was a game-changer. I've been fighting this for a long time. I headed up the Recovery Act, which put more money into moving away from fossil fuels to — to solar and wind energy than ever has occurred in the history of America," he said.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Trending
Wind turbines in China. shizhao / CC BY-SA 2.0
President Donald Trump doesn't like wind power, and he wants everyone to know it.
<p>He fought and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-scotland-windfarm-lawsuit-2641325439.html" target="_self">lost a legal battle</a> to prevent a wind farm from going up near his golf course in Scotland and, in April, he <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-wind-turbines-cancer-2633591489.html" target="_self">claimed wind turbines caused cancer</a>. </p>
<p>Then, on Saturday, he lifted his lance to tilt at windmills yet again during a speech at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2019/12/23/politics/wind-turbines-trump-fact-check/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>. His remarks came as he attacked the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/green-new-deal" target="_self">Green New Deal</a>, according to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-windmills-speech-wind-power-turning-point-usa-renewable-energy-a9257606.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a>, a plan championed by progressive Democrats to transition the U.S. economy from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a> to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" target="_self">renewable energy</a> while creating jobs and fighting inequality.</p><p>"We'll have an economy based on wind," he said, according to a video shared by The Guardian. "I never understood wind. I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody."</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="da7988f2c0072d4dc3d16ceea502dbe7"><iframe lazy-loadable="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ec9P3C1OXqE?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>He then went on to charge windmills with various defects. He said they were expensive and were made mostly in China and Germany. He also argued they were heavily polluting, according to The Guardian:<br></p><blockquote>"But they're manufactured tremendous if you're into this, tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything.<br><br>"You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether it's in China, Germany, it's going into the air. It's our air, their air, everything, right?"</blockquote>
<p>It is true that China and Germany are major producers of wind turbines, The Independent noted, but the technology is not a net emitter of greenhouse gasses. In fact, in 2018, electricity generated by wind prevented 200 million tonnes of carbon pollution from entering the atmosphere, the American Wind Energy Association found.</p><p>Trump also repeated his argument that wind turbines harm birds.</p><p>"You want to see a bird graveyard? Go under a windmill someday. You'll see more birds than you've ever seen in your life," he said, according to The Guardian.</p><p>While it is true that wind turbines do kill birds, fossil fuel power plants are deadlier, CNN pointed out. Turbine collisions kill between 140,000 and 500,000 birds a year, but coal, oil, power lines and other energy sources kill millions, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.</p><p>Trump's rant against wind turbines comes as he has lashed out against green technology in recent weeks. Earlier this month, he <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/water-efficient-toilets-trump-2641555142.html" target="_self">attacked water efficiency standards</a> in construction by saying people were having to flush toilets "10 times, 15 times." And at a rally in Michigan last week, he said that women had told him they had to run dishwashers multiple times to make them work, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-on-wind-turbines-low-flow-toilets-and-led-lightbulbs-set-up-key-campaign-clash-with-democrats/2019/12/23/1077f64a-25a3-11ea-ad73-2fd294520e97_story.html?fbclid=IwAR3wOaZQ1J_guYmI4FoJ43hKmRXPfummLP5oYP-9huxNs_-LeRZtyjShyrU" target="_blank">The Washington Post reported</a>.</p>
<p>"The broad nostalgia encapsulated in Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan has become increasingly specific as he has zeroed in on consumer issues such as energy-efficient appliances, carbon-reducing fuel standards and plastic straw bans," The Washington Post wrote. "Often operating from his own feelings rather than scientific evidence, the president has castigated Democrats' environmental agenda as unworkable and counterproductive."</p><p>All of this rhetoric has policy consequences. The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Friday it would keep incandescent and halogen light bulbs on the market instead of replacing them with more energy efficient varieties. And Trump has asked the Environmental Protection Agency and the DOE to look into relaxing Obama-era efficiency standards for appliances like dishwashers.</p><p>"The Trump administration's repeated attacks defy the common-sense, bipartisan support that energy efficiency has long enjoyed," Steve Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, told The Washington Post. "They will cost consumers and businesses money, create uncertainty for businesses as rollbacks are contested in courts, add to harmful pollution, and undermine our efforts to address the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>."</p>
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Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson (C) walks with Oliver Harmar (R), Yorkshire area director of the Environment Agency as he visits Stainforth near Doncaster, northern England, on Nov. 13, 2019, following flooding caused by days of heavy rain. DANNY LAWSON / POOL/AFP via Getty Images
The Conservative Party emerged victorious in Thursday's UK elections with a majority of 78 seats in the House of Commons, its largest majority since 1987, as BBC News reported.
<p>With one seat left to count, the Conservatives now have 364 seats, the Labour Party has 203, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has 48, the Liberal Democrats have 11, the Welsh Plaid Cymru has four and the Green Party has one.</p><p>Conservative Leader and defending Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had focused his campaign on a promise to "get Brexit done," hailed his party's victory as a "new dawn" in British politics. But what does the Conservative win mean for the planet?</p><p>Previous Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May made the UK one of the first major economies to commit to a 2050 carbon neutrality deadline before leaving office in June, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/28/conservative-manifesto-mentions-climate-crisis-only-10-times" target="_blank">The Guardian reported</a>. And the Conservative election manifesto <a href="https://vote.conservatives.com/our-plan" target="_blank">repeated that pledge</a>.</p><p>"And you the people of this country voted to be carbon neutral in this election," Johnson said in his victory speech, according to a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/transcript-boris-johnson-election-victory-speech-full-191213082621940.html" target="_blank">Press Association transcript published by Al Jazeera</a>. "You voted to be carbon neutral by 2050 and we will do it."</p>
<p>However, analysis by environmental groups found that the Conservative Party actually had one of the least ambitious manifestos of the competing parties when it came to environmental issues.<br></p><p><a href="https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/labours-plans-for-climate-and-nature-score-twice-as-high-as-the-conservatives-according-to-election-manifesto-ranking/" target="_blank">Greenpeace UK</a> gave the Conservative Party a rank of seven on a 20 point scale. The Green Party topped the list with 19, and the main opposition Labour Party came in second with 16. The Conservatives also scored low on the <a href="https://friendsoftheearth.uk/general-election/election-manifestos-labour-tops-friends-earths-climate-and-nature-league-table" target="_blank">Friends of the Earth</a> 45-point scale, earning only 5.5 points to Labour's 33 and the Green Party's 31.</p><p>"Despite the Conservative Party manifesto offering decent policies on plastics and agricultural subsidies and restatement of the moratorium on fracking, in sector after sector its commitments were invariably weaker than the other parties, entirely absent or just plain bad," Friends of the Earth head of political affairs Dave Timms said. "Their manifesto consistently failed to step up to address the climate and nature emergencies, which are hurting communities right now and will deliver catastrophe in the future. We were concerned that they failed to restate commitments to some existing positive government policies."</p><p>Where did the Conservative Party fall short? For one thing, the other parties set much more ambitious timelines for tackling the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a>.</p><p>The Green Party and the Labour Party both promised versions of what they called a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/green-new-deal" target="_self">Green New Deal</a>. The Green Party <a href="https://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/Elections/Green%20Party%20Manifesto%202019.pdf" target="_blank">aimed</a> to invest in green jobs, homes and transport with a goal of reducing emissions to net zero by 2030. Labour, meanwhile, <a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/a-green-industrial-revolution/" target="_blank">promised</a> a "Green Industrial Revolution" to green transport, energy, industry, agriculture and buildings while creating one million jobs and restoring nature. It promised to "achieve the substantial majority of our emissions reductions by 2030." Plaid Cymru also set a 2030 deadline for net zero emissions and a ban on the sale of new diesel and gas vehicles, according to Greenpeace.</p><p>The Liberal Democrats promised a 10-year intensive program aimed at reducing emissions, with a goal of cutting emissions from the most challenging sectors by 2045 at the latest, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/28/conservative-manifesto-mentions-climate-crisis-only-10-times" target="_blank">according to The Guardian</a>. The SNP promised a 75 percent emissions reduction by 2035, net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and net zero emissions overall by 2045.</p>
<p>Only the Brexit Party, which had set no net-zero emissions target and made no promise to restore nature, had a less ambitious manifesto, according to Greenpeace. The Brexit Party did well in the European parliamentary elections this summer, but won no seats on Thursday, according to BBC News.</p><p>In addition to its less ambitious timeline, Greenpeace also noted that the Conservative Party continued to support the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuel</a> and aviation industries and had committed to building new roads. A Greenpeace investigation reported by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservatives-general-election-campaign-fossil-fuel-climate-change-emergency-a9242016.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a> Thursday further found that the Conservative campaign had received more than £1 million in donations from fossil fuel investors.</p><p>"The motives behind these donations are unknown, but there has to be suspicion about whether donors' interests may shape the future government's response to the climate crisis we're in," Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK's director of policy, told The Independent. "Voters deserve to know who is propping up these election campaigns and, if elected, how they may get preferential treatment with the governing party who has taken their dirty money."</p><p>Johnson also failed to participate in a party leaders' debate on the climate crisis hosted by the UK's Channel 4 and was replaced by a melting ice sculpture.</p>
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a press statement on the European Green Deal at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on Dec. 11, 2019. Xinhua / Zheng Huansong via Getty Images
The European Commission introduced a plan to overhaul the bloc's economy to more sustainable, climate-conscious policies and infrastructure, with the goal of being carbon-neutral by 2050, according to CNBC.
<p>The proposal, dubbed the "European Green Deal," seems to be the most ambitious vision from a major economy to combat the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis" target="_self">climate crisis</a>. The proposal for the 28 countries that make up the world's largest economic bloc and ranks third behind the U.S. and China in global greenhouse emissions will require a massive overhaul of its practice in order to achieve no detrimental impact on the economy by 2050, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/12/11/21010681/european-green-new-deal-climate-change-cop25" target="_blank">Vox</a> reported.</p><p>Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission's new president, introduced the European Green Deal package in Brussels on Wednesday. The proposals seem to leave no part of life untouched, as it affects transportation, agriculture, energy and buildings. Industries such as cement, steel, information and communication technology, chemicals and textiles are also included, as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/12/eu-sets-out-plans-for-climate-neutrality-by-2050.html" target="_blank">CNBC</a> reported.</p><p>"[This] is our new growth strategy, for a growth that gives back more than it takes away," she said, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/11/european-green-deal-will-change-economy-to-solve-climate-crisis-says-eu" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>. "It shows how to transform our way of living and working, of producing and consuming, so that we live healthier [lives] and make our businesses innovate. We will help our economy to be a global leader by moving first and moving fast."</p><p>To reach carbon neutrality in 30 years, the package calls for upping the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/paris-agreement" target="_self">Paris agreement</a> target of slashing emissions to 40 percent below pre-1990 levels by 2030 to 50 percent, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/12/11/21010681/european-green-new-deal-climate-change-cop25" target="_blank">Vox</a> reported.</p><p>"This is Europe's man on the moon moment," said von der Leyen, according to <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/12/11/21010681/european-green-new-deal-climate-change-cop25" target="_blank">Vox</a>.</p><p>The policy paper calls for massive payouts to member-states that rely on <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal</a> power as a way to wean them off burning <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a> and shift to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/" target="_self">renewables</a>, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/europe/eu-climate-plan-coal.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. The bloc will have to spend generously to convince polluting countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which rely on coal for generating electricity and have long resisted commitments to net-zero carbon emissions.</p><p>"Our goal is to reconcile our economy with our planet, and make it work for our people," said von der Leyen, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/europe/eu-climate-plan-coal.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported. "The European Green Deal is as much about cutting emissions as it is about creating jobs."</p><p>The commission will present the draft laws to the European Union for approval in January. It is expected that the final product will be slightly watered down after debate and input from the member states. If the proposal passes, the policies will likely be implemented in 2021, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/europe/eu-climate-plan-coal.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a> reported.</p><p>If the EU passes this ambitious strategy paper, it can claim the mantle as a world leader in fighting the climate crisis. Doing so would put pressure on China to reduce its carbon emissions when EU and Chinese leaders meet for a climate summit in Germany next fall. Alden Meyer, an expert on climate change policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said China was unlikely to commit to stronger emissions goals if Europe did not do so first, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/world/europe/eu-climate-plan-coal.html" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>Climate activists welcomed the ambitious plan, but called for bolder strokes and more specific details.</p><p>"The proposed package is comprehensive, identifying the right areas for action — from biodiversity and nature restoration to climate change and stopping deforestation — and it presents us with a number of new and potentially transformational initiatives," Ester Asin, director of the WWF's European Policy Office, said in a statement, as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/12/eu-sets-out-plans-for-climate-neutrality-by-2050.html" target="_blank">CNBC</a> reported.</p><p>"However, by emphasizing continued economic growth as a key objective, the Commission has missed an opportunity to challenge the traditional growth paradigm in favor of an approach that would respect planetary boundaries," Asin added. "Can such 'in the box' thinking achieve the deep systemic change that was promised?"</p><p>Greenpeace was similarly skeptical.</p>"The climate targets [the commission is] proposing would be too little too late," said Franziska Achterberg, EU spokesperson for Greenpeace, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/11/european-green-deal-will-change-economy-to-solve-climate-crisis-says-eu" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported. "On protecting nature, much is aspirational and needs to be fleshed out. The detailed measures that will follow must tackle the production and consumption patterns that have brought us to the brink."
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