Joe Biden, Democratic presidential candidate, informed Reuters through his climate policy advisors, that he is developing a “middle ground” climate policy that will endorse the Paris climate agreement while continuing to support fossil fuel consumption. www.reuters.com/…
Update:
A Biden spokesman has now tweeted that the Reuters article is wrong but has not indicated what is wrong about the article:
Joe Biden has tweeted that climate change is an existential threat and will have more specifics in coming weeks.
Please note, he could have tweeted that he supports the Green New Deal which will generate thousands of good new jobs of the future, energy independence and an approach to stabilizing climate change.
Please also see this excellent analysis by Dailykos’ Mark Sumner: www.dailykos.com/...
End Update
Reuters reporters spoke to Heather Zikal, a former climate advisor to President Obama, and a former Obama Energy department official who requested to not be named. Zikal said that Biden plans to restore Obama era regulations concerning emissions and vehicle fuel efficiency. The unnamed advisor indicated that Biden would be taking a fossil fuel friendly approach in the hopes of winning support from oil, gas and coal industry workers.
The second source, a former energy department official also advising Biden’s campaign who asked not to be named, said the policy will likely also be supportive of nuclear energy and fossil fuel options like natural gas and carbon capture technology, which limit emissions from coal plants and other industrial facilities.
This proposed “moderate” approach to climate change is based on out-of-date economics that is no longer true. Plans to build new nuclear power plants have been scrapped because nuclear power is far more expensive than wind and solar power. Likewise, coal power plants are shutting down because coal power is not economically competitive. That’s before adding expensive carbon capture. Trump administration officials have been pushing for taxpayer and ratepayer subsidies to nuclear and coal power plants because they are money losers for utilities. www.inverse.com/...
The results are stark. Levelized costs reach as low as $15 per megawatt-hour for wind and $28 per megawatt-hour for solar.
In the case of coal, marginal costs for plants in regular use (where the actual output is more than 33 percent of its theoretical maximum, a figure called “capacity factor”), vary from $25 to a staggering $104 per megawatt-hour. These figures rise even higher for plants with a low capacity factor.
Moreover, there are already 4 times more solar jobs than jobs in coal and coal related industries. According to the National Solar Foundation (see inverse.com article) there are 53,000 coal related jobs compared to 242,000 solar jobs. Clearly the jobs are in solar, not coal, and any Democratic candidate who is fighting for American jobs should support the Green New Deal which will create far more new jobs than a “moderate” plan would.
All of the leading Democrats except Joe Biden have endorsed the Green New Deal which would bring on a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Candidates endorsing the Green New Deal include Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The Green New Deal is at the center of today’s Democratic party spectrum because climate change is now a top concern of American voters and the Green New Deal is extremely popular with young voters. Biden’s strategy would be to compete with Trump for the older independent swing voters while neglecting the urgent climate change concerns of young voters who strongly support the Green New Deal. www.politico.com/...
Though Republicans have ignored climate change in past elections, it’s now a key part of their 2020 strategy, especially in House races. They’re hoping to define the Green New Deal as an expensive socialist gambit dreamed up by liberal superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that will ban cows and planes. Though mostly inaccurate, it's a portrayal they believe will scare independent voters in key districts.
But the move could come at a cost: The near- and long-term loss of millennials and Generation Z voters, a growing slice of the electorate that wants federal climate change action to a greater degree than their elders. A recent Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics survey found 74 percent of likely general election voters under 30 disapprove of President Donald Trump’s climate change performance and 50 percent call climate change “a crisis” that “demands urgent action.” Another 25 percent called it “a problem.” (bold added by Fish)
The data has Republican pollsters and current and former lawmakers warning that relentless mocking of the Green New Deal — but more critically, President Donald Trump’s dismissal of climate change as a hoax — could jeopardize the GOP’s ability to capture and cement a congressional majority.
Climate activists from young to old were upset by Biden’s climate plan preview.
Joe Biden’s climate plan preview is based on ideas and policies that are one to two decades out of date. From Texas to Florida, from Puerto Rico to North Carolina we are already seeing unprecedented climate disasters linked to greenhouse gas caused climate change. There was nothing moderate about miles of I-40 in North Carolina turning into a waterway for a month. There was nothing moderate about the whole island of Puerto Rico being devastated by category 4 hurricane winds. There was nothing moderate about the rapid intensification of hurricane Michael which hit category 5 as it devastated the Florida panhandle. There was nothing moderate about 50 inches of rain over Houston Texas and the biblical flooding Hurricane Harvey caused. All of these events were unprecedented and all of them can be linked to unprecedented ocean heat in regions of the north Atlantic basin that are impacted by hurricanes.
Greta Thunberg is right. We grown-ups have failed her generation. They are inheriting a climate crisis that we have created by our indefensible defense of business as usual. However, we have the technologies now to run carbon emissions free economies, so there is hope for young people if we act strongly on the climate crisis now. The time for “moderate” measures was decades ago.