A key issue for 2020, but few plans Climate change is emerging as a critical issue for 2020. A recent Reuters poll confirmed that 69 percent of voters?including Republicans?believe the country should take ?aggressive? action to reduce emissions, with a majority of Americans agreeing that the U.S. should transition to 100 percent clean energy within a decade.
But how, exactly, to reduce U.S. emissions is set to become one of the more pivotal differentiators among leading 2020 presidential candidates, mostly because only a handful of candidates have released comprehensive climate plans. In fact, as the Democratic debates kick off, some advocates have been calling for a separate, climate-focused debate to bring more time, attention, and nuance to an issue that commanded only 2 percent of total stage time at the 2016 presidential debates. Since the last election, the urgency of the climate crisis has become apparent as still-increasing emissions have fueled a record-breaking number of extreme weather events, destroyed entire cities, and cost the country billions of dollars each year?all of which is predicted to get worse.
Although not every Democratic candidate has a plan to address climate change, Curbed has compiled an overview of where many of the two dozen candidates stand on the major climate issues. We will update this post as candidates share new proposals.
The single-issue climate candidate
As governor of Washington, and before that as a member of Congress, Jay ...