As the 2016 presidential election race heats up, candidates are shedding light on their priorities and plans for tackling key issues such as climate change and how to reduce its effects.
As of 2012, 67 percent of Americans — 85 percent of Democratic voters — believe there is solid evidence the earth is warming. And about 42 percent of all voters believe the warming is due to human activity, according to Pew Research Center findings.
This uptick in attention is voiced mostly by the Democratic candidates, almost all of whom have stated they believe climate change to be real and man-made. And that’s good for environmentally-conscious voters who want their next leader to continue President Barack Obama’s fight against climate change. Obama recently rolled out the Climate Power Plan, which aims to cut power plants’ carbon emissions by 32 percent over the next 15 years.
However, not all of the candidates have presented a detailed plan to tackle the issue, and some of them even became targets of backlash from climate activists. Here’s a quick guide to what each Democratic presidential hopeful brings to the climate talks.
Martin O’Malley
The former Maryland governor has, by far, put forth the most comprehensive plan in hopes to push the fight against climate change further than Obama has done in office and what his opponents plan to do.
O’Malley’s platform envisions a complete transition to renewable energy sources by 2050 — more than any other candidates’ energy goals — and double the national energy efficiency in 15 years. His plans also call for incentives for clean energy jobs and production, while capping carbon emissions and restricting drilling in Alaska and off the United States’ coasts.
O’Malley opposes the Keystone XL pipeline. Proposed in 2008, the pipeline would carry up to 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
These ideas have drawn the applause of the Sierra Club, though O’Malley has yet to lock down an endorsement from the environmental advocates. To accomplish all of his goals, O’Malley plans to create a clean energy job corps that would partner with communities to enhance their energy efficiencies. He called clean energy “the biggest business and job creation opportunity we’ve seen in the last hundred years.”
Bernie Sanders
Sanders, a senator from Vermont, is also focusing on environmental policies, though his plans are not as thorough as O’Malley’s. Sanders’ platform states he would tax oil and coal emissions to discourage the use of fossil fuels and eliminate $135 billion in tax breaks for fossil fuel companies.
Beyond his platform, Sanders and his camp focus on his Congressional progress instead of focusing on his Oval Office plans. In 2013, Sanders introduced the Climate Protection Act to tax carbon and methane emissions from coal, oil and natural gas production. His bill sought to invest the emission tax revenue in sustainable energy and increase energy efficiency. However, the bill did not make it through Congress.
Sanders also spoke out against the Keystone pipeline and secured $3.2 billion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Hillary Clinton
Clinton, former secretary of state and Democratic frontrunner, is trying to brand herself as a champion for the environment, but is falling short of environmentalists’ expectations.
Her recently released climate plan calls for 33 percent of the nation’s electricity to be produced from renewable sources by 2027 — up from Obama’s call for 20 percent by 2030. She also envisions installing a half billion solar panels by 2020 and generating enough carbon-free energy to power every home within 10 years.
But climate advocates are not impressed. James Hansen, a leading climate change researcher who headed NASA’s Goddard Institute, told The Guardian that Clinton’s plans are “just plain silly,” and that subsidizing solar panels will not cut it. In the interview, Hansen went on to urge Clinton to ramp up the fight against fossil fuels and take a stance against further drilling as well as the Keystone pipeline.
Clinton has actually been mute on the Keystone project throughout her campaign. As secretary of state, she had a hand in evaluating the pipeline, though she has yet to publicly share her views on the project. When asked by a voter in New Hampshire whether she would approve such a project as president, Clinton declined to answer and said it was not her decision to make, but the current administration’s.
Before her most recent climate plan, climate change was lumped under “defending America and our core values,” one of her four major talking points. She called climate change a “defining national security challenge of our time,” and promised to fight its effects instead of backing away from them — a move that separates her from her Republican opponents.
Lincoln Chafee
The former Rhode Island Governor listed “environmental stewardship” as one of his four priorities, but has yet to offer up a detailed plan. So far, he has only said he would reduce greenhouse gasses and would oppose the Keystone pipeline if the issue continued into his potential presidency.
As governor, Chafee signed legislation to reduce Rhode Island’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. But when Chafee was a U.S. senator in 2005, he led the charge against then-President George W. Bush’s Clear Skies Initiative, which proposed reducing mercury emissions by 70 percent, because he believed the law didn’t do enough to control pollution.
Jim Webb
Webb, a former U.S. senator from Virginia, is the odd man out in the Democratic primary. Unlike the others, he has not publicly said he will combat climate change if elected and has not proposed a plan to reduce carbon emissions.
Prior to his run for the White House, however, Webb, a former Republican, frequently took sides with pro-drilling and pro-coal legislation. He is in favor of the Keystone pipeline and is a fan of offshore drilling. In 2011, Webb co-authored legislation to open waters off the coast of Virginia to allow more gas and oil exploration.
Webb also has vocally opposed limits on carbon emissions from coal power plants. As a politician from Virginia, a coal state, he has been pro-coal throughout his career.
Contributed by Katie Pohlman
