WU Political Review
What’s at Stake in 2020? Our Planet Grethe Andersen, staff writer
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limate change has finally taken a place on the center stage of global politics, largely thanks to the mobilization of young climate activists like Greta Thunberg, Isra Hirsi, Autumn Peltier, and Vic Barrett. But while these activists inspire change, they can only do so much without holding political office. The power to create legislation and enact policies that can address the root of the issue ultimately rests in the hands of politicians, which has resulted in an unprecedented spotlight on climate change policy in the 2020 presidential race. While the subject hasn’t been adequately addressed in the Democratic presidential debates, several news outlets like MSNBC and CNN dedicated airtime for town halls that allowed candidates to discuss their views and policies on climate change, and the rise of climate activism has made it impossible for any Democrat running to do so without a proposal on climate change. It is critical that voters understand the different candidates’ views on climate change as the winner of the 2020 election will occupy the office for the next four years, which will bring us even closer to the end of the 12 year period that the UN warned was our last chance to keep global warming below 1.5°C. Climate change is among the most universally pressing issues we face and we must understand exactly how the president that we elect in 2020 can help or hinder the fight against climate change and the movement towards a greener future. To begin, let’s examine the differences between the Democratic and Republican parties on the subject. While climate change should not be partisan as it affects every single person regardless of their political leanings, each party takes a significantly different stance on the subject. For example, each party has a webpage outlining their stance on issues pertaining to the environment; the following quotes are the last sentence taken from each
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party’s page. The Democratic party states that “it will take all of us acting together—workers and entrepreneurs, scientists and citizens, the public and the private sector—to address the challenge of climate change and seize our cleanenergy future.” The Republican party, on the other hand, “firmly believe[s] environmental problems are best solved by giving incentives for human ingenuity and the development of new technologies, not through top-down, command-and-control regulations that stifle economic growth and cost thousands of jobs.” The Democratic party clearly shows a belief in collaboration and action, but the Republican party’s official stance, while recognizing that there are “environmental problems,” does not offer active solutions and instead seems to be relying on the hope that new technologies will come to the rescue. I feel obligated to use the Republican phrasing of “environmental problems” because the phrase “climate change” only shows up three times in the entirety of the Republican party’s platform on agriculture, energy, and the environment. The only time when climate change is mentioned as an issue, and not just included in the name of a UN body, is when the Republican party declares that “climate change is far from this nation’s most pressing national security issue” and shows “the triumph of extremism over common sense.” The radically different party stances on climate change are also evident in the proposed climate policies of the presidential candidates for the 2020 election. It’s clear that Donald Trump, like his party, does not prioritize environmental conservation. His highly publicized removal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord made the US one of only three countries to leave the agreement. He labeled it as unfair, but his statement on the issue showed a fundamental misunderstanding of what climate change is. In Trump’s official statement on the Paris Climate Accord, Trump
told people not to worry, as “the United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth. We’ll be the cleanest. We’re going to have the cleanest air. We’re going to have the cleanest water.” Not only is the United States not the most environmentally friendly country on Earth (according to the 2018 Environmental Performance Index, that honor goes to Switzerland; the United States is ranked as 27), but clean water and clean air are only part of the problem. Having clean air and clean water does not mean that the Greenland ice sheet isn’t melting, or that carbon emissions are no longer an issue. Having clean air and clean water also does not mean that Trump can ignore climate science and continue his work expanding offshore oil and gas drilling and bragging about ending, as he calls it, “the previous administration’s war on coal.” Trump has worked to systematically repeal and relax environmental protections. For instance, in 2019 he repealed Obama’s Clean Power Plan and replaced it with the Affordable Emission Act. On the surface, it seems harmless, even beneficial; the act relies on heat rate improvement, which would incentivize fossil-fuel based power plants to extract more energy from the same amount of fuel. However, Environmental Research Letters published a study that predicted that 28% of the power plants modeled in their study would end up producing more carbon dioxide by 2030 because this rule incentivizes burning more fuels like coal and natural gas. In yet another shocking move—especially if animal-suffering pulls at your heartstrings more than the thought of burning coal—Trump revised the Endangered Species Act. The government will now consider economic factors when determining whether a species should be
