“We believe the Paris agreement should commit all parties to undertake nationally determined efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; provide strong transparency to hold countries accountable; require periodic renewal of national contributions to progressively strengthen the global effort; and facilitate worldwide carbon markets”.
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Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley staked his climate claim with a pledge to put the U.S. on 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, a goal he’d previously state. Later in the debate, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the moderator for the evening, asked the candidates to identify what they viewed as the greatest threat to national security.
“The scientific community is telling us if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy, the planet we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable”. “That is a major crisis”.
“But officials in both countries have an easy riposte for Western politicians on climate change: the onus for reform is still on you”, he added. “The Clean Power Plan adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency is a good start, but we must implement it and do more for all of us and future generations”, says Sandy Bahr, director of the Arizona Chapter of the Sierra Club.
During the past two presidential campaigns, environmentalists cheered at the mere mention of climate change.
“We recognize the rising environmental, social, economic, and security risks posed by climate change, and that delaying action will result in greater risks and costs”, the statement said. She recalled working with President Barack Obama to bring China to the negotiating table at the 2009 United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen. “We knew that we had to get them to agree to something”, she said.
The influential Washington Post, meanwhile, joined issue with what it called “Webb’s grandstanding over India and China as the ‘world’s worst polluters, ‘ home to a few of the world’s most smoke-clad cities”.
Clinton stressed the importance of the Obama administration’s subsequent work to get a bilateral agreement with China, and the ongoing worldwide negotiations.
But not every candidate paid respects to the current President-particularly on energy policy.
O’Malley took aim at Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy policy and labeled his own take on the issue as a “revolution”, stressing the need for more action on alternatives such as wind and solar.
A declaration released yesterday by conference organisers also emphasises the need for a departure from capitalism; “In order to survive, humanity must free itself from capitalism.It is driving us towards a horizon of destruction, which promises a death sentence for nature and for life itself”. Only the most conservative candidate of the bunch, Virginia Senator Jim Webb, failed to mention it.
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She finally came out against it last month, when polls began to show her as the Democrats’ front-runner, and insisted that: “I never took a position on Keystone until I took a position on Keystone”. “Are you out of step with the Democratic party?”
