Buttigieg on climate change

John Harwood: Now, one thing that surprised me that you said in an interview the other day was that first of all, political change comes first. That is the set of issues, Supreme Court, filibuster, electoral college, because that is necessary to achieve policy changes that you need. But when you identified the most important policy change, it was climate, not the economy. Explain why that’s the priority.

Pete Buttigieg: Because I think climate is the biggest economic issue of our time, too. What kind of economy are we going to have if cities are becoming less and less inhabitable, if we’re experiencing crop failures and heightening natural disasters? The problem with climate is it wrecks our chance at economic security as well as physical security. So, of course, we want to continue building an equitable and a growing economy. It’s just that we can’t do that if we’re totally ignoring the biggest threat our economy has seen since the Great Depression.