- On Wednesday, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates discussed their ideas about how to address climate change in a CNN town hall.
- Theseven-hour televised event included individual sessions with each of the 10 candidates, during which they described their stance on topics like carbon taxes, off-shore drilling, and nuclear energy.
- Here’s where each candidate stands on important issues related to climate change andhow the US should approach them.
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In the absence of an official Democratic debate about climate-change policy, CNN hosted a seven-hour town hall on the subject this week with 10 Democratic presidential candidates.
Each candidate got 40 minutes to discuss their ideas about how the US should tackle the climate crisis and answer questions from the audience.
Nearly all of said that the US should recommit to the Paris climate agreement (President Donald Trump has pledged to withdraw the US from the agreement as soon as it’s legally permitted in November 2020) and halt new leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands. Most also offered a plan to put a price on carbon emissions.
The discussions also covered issues like fracking — the process of injecting rock with high-pressure liquid to release natural gas — whether to offer federal assistance to Americans displaced by climate change, and nuclear power (which currently accounts for 20% of US electricity).
Senator Elizabeth Warren, who recently incorporated many elements of former candidate Jay Inslee’s climate plan into her own, pushed for the US to achieve 100% clean energy in just a decade. Others, like Senator Kamala Harris, advocated for a sweepingGreen New Deal.
Businessman Andrew Yang, meanwhile, expounded on his support forgeoengineering efforts like seeding clouds with aerosols to reflect sunlight back into space. And Senator Bernie Sanders talked about the idea that controlling population growth could be a climate-change strategy.
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