2020 Democratic candidate Biden releases $5 trillion climate plan
Former US Vice President Joe Biden, who is the front-runner for the 2020 US Democratic presidential nomination, has released his multi-trillion dollar climate policy proposal that would target net-zero emissions and a 100 percent clean energy economy by 2050.
Unveiled on Tuesday, the "Biden Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution & Environmental Justice" involved investing 1.7 trillion dollars over 10 years in clean energy research and modernizing infrastructure to eliminate the emissions of the greenhouse gases.
Investments from state and local governments as well as private companies would push the total to $5 trillion.
"Science tells us that how we act or fail to act in the next 12 years will determine the very livability of our planet," Biden said in a statement. "That’s why I’m calling for a Clean Energy Revolution to confront this crisis and do what America does best — solve big problems with big ideas.”
Biden’s campaign said that the veteran politician, as president, would re-enter the Paris climate accord and "lead an effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate target.”
The proposed plan also promised to "reinvigorate" middle class manufacturing jobs, including those that would likely be lost in fossil fuel sectors like coal mining.
Biden said the required funds would come from rolling back corporate tax cuts introduced by the administration of incumbent US President Donald Trump.
In June 2017, Trump announced that he was pulling out of the 2015 global agreement to fight climate change, characterizing the decision as "a reassertion of American sovereignty."
The move drew rebuke from Democrats at home and world leaders who had pressed Trump not to abandon the 197-nation accord.
He argued that remaining in the deal would hurt the US economy. Trump cannot formally leave the deal until a day after the 2020 election.
Some of Biden's Democratic rivals, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, have taken tougher stances on climate change by endorsing the Green New Deal, a non-binding Congressional resolution that calls for an end to fossil fuels use within a decade.
Also on Tuesday, Warren unveiled Green Manufacturing Plan, which would invest $2 trillion in climate-friendly industries over a decade, create a new cabinet-level Department of Economic Development and even manipulate the dollar to promote exports.
Both plans, with enough spending and enough regulation, claim to totally transform the US economy.
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