Being a serious Democratic candidate for 2020 means having a plan for addressing the climate crisis. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand passed that hurdle on Thursday with the release of a plan that she labels a “Climate Change Moonshot.” The plan includes a hefty tax on sources of atmospheric carbon. And it goes beyond the plans put forward by many other candidates by not just ending further exploration for oil and coal on public lands, but also phasing out existing permits.
The target for Gillibrand is to reach net-zero on carbon emissions by 2050. But there are other dates in her plan that come up much sooner, such as reaching net-zero on electrical production nationwide by 2030. Her plan also calls for updating the electrical grid to better handle more distributed, renewable sources and provide better service and reliability, particularly in rural areas.
Unlike the Green New Deal, which doesn’t explicitly call for a carbon tax, Gillibrand is doing just that. Her plan calls for “a meaningful price on carbon — starting at $52 per metric ton,” which would go toward funding a $100 billion a year fund for both moving the nation toward a green future and mitigating the effects that the climate crisis is already producing in the form of floods, fires, and storms.
Gillibrand also calls for a program that would directly address workers in fossil fuel industries who lose their positions as fossil fuels fall by the wayside. And she would address the needs of communities that are fossil fuel dependent by making them a priority for clean technology jobs. That includes something that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have decidedly not done: committing to protect healthcare plans, retirement funds, and black lung disability payments for coal miners.
The complete plan also deals with other issues of pollution, such as the water crisis in Flint, and includes funding a “space race” for improvements in renewable energy. In total, Gillibrand believes that her plan would involve $10 trillion in financing, but that’s not a $10 trillion cost to the taxpayer. That’s the sum of all that would go into implementing the plan, including investments that would be made in creating new and profitable green businesses.
With more Democratic candidates releasing their ideas for addressing the climate crisis, it’s worthwhile to compare one plan against another and look for the best ideas for each aspect of the problem. But the best thing is that, no matter who the candidate for the Democratic Party turns out to be, that candidate is going to come with a plan that recognizes not just that the climate crisis is real, but that it really demands serious action.