Why Democrats Are Eager To Make Climate Change A Central Issue In The 2020 Campaign

DETROW: One platform McKibben singled out – Elizabeth Warren’s recent proposal to not only ban drilling on federally owned lands, but to build enough new wind and solar projects on them to produce 10 percent of the country’s electricity. Every Democrat running for president would rejoin the Paris climate accord, the international pledge to lower carbon emissions that President Trump took the United States out of.

Trump and most Republicans in Congress have long dismissed climate as a serious issue. They frame the Green New Deal as a socialist, big-government power grab. National polls show more than 7 in 10 Americans think there’s solid evidence of climate change. Democrats like Warren see those numbers as a sign Republicans are out of step with voters.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WARREN: They routinely dismiss the impacts of climate change and deny clear evidence that we must take action. They refuse even to say the words climate change. That’s not leadership.