Your Guide To How Every 2020 Candidate Wants To Fight The Climate Crisis

Welcome to Got Issues?, MTV News’s candidate-by-candidate breakdown of your biggest concerns and questions about the 2020 race.


The climate crisis is no mere buzzword — as far as existential threats go, the fact that the planet keeps getting hotter and hotter is becoming increasingly tough to don't think about. Young people have regularly showed up to the frontlines to demand mass change from government and agency leaders, and that devotion is paying off: If the 2020 elections have taught us anything, it’s that candidates need to have ideas on how to undo the harm to the environment being wrought every day.


According to a MTV Tricks study, 83 percent of respondents aged 18-34 mentioned climate change was key to them as a political supply. Twenty percent of respondents also listed climate change the number one offer that would likely get them to vote, tied with gun control reform. Although while most presidential candidates have climate policies and proposals, the crisis hasn’t taken up much stage time at any of the Democratic presidential primary debates. 


MTV News reached out to every major presidential candidate with the same question: If elected, what would you do to fight the climate crisis — and why would you center the young people who have been making the distribute their rallying cry for years? Some recommended statements, while others made time for interviews — and naturally, we dug into everyone’s backgrounds and voting records to fill in the blanks. The general consensus is that something needs to be done to combat the crisis, however how that is achieved differs from candidate to candidate. Ahead, learn more about what each presidential candidate would do to address a bigger threat than even the meteor in Armageddon — and the timeline, cost, and infrastructure changes they believe are critical in meeting those goals.


Joe Biden


How does he wish to save the planet? Make it a world fight.


Since his first term In the United States Senate in 1973, Biden has voted in a manner deemed “pro-environment” by the League of Conservation Voters, or the LCV, 83 percent of the time. In 1986, he introduced the Global Climate Protection Act, which traditional a task force serious about informing lawmakers about the climate crisis. He has also been met with criticism from progressive activists, several of whom hope to be able to see the end of fracking — a practice several candidates have mentioned they would regulate although not necessarily ban outright — among other industry-changing measures.


In a statement supplied to MTV News, Biden pointed to the ways his plan promises to provide $1.7 trillion to fight the crisis, prioritize the creation of 10 million jobs in a “clean economy,” and contributor for communities most affected by environmental racism. He also highlighted the ways in which the crisis is a “worldwide problem” and promised to convince other countries to create “more ambitious national pledges, above and in back of the commitments they have already made.” (The U.S. Is now the second-largest producer of carbon dioxide on the planet.)


“Nothing gives me more hope for the future than seeing my five grandchildren challenge expectations. They visualize breakthroughs in technology we can’t even however imagine. They’re enthusiastic and engaged; poised to remake the world,” Biden added. “But the only way they’re going to get a chance to accomplish all that potential, is if we take substantial action now to address the climate mess facing the country and our world.”


Michael Bloomberg


How does he wish to save the planet? Focus on executive authority.


Let’s get one thing off to the side here: Michael Bloomberg is a billionaire several times over. However even the former mayor of New York, who is reportedly worth $62 billion, wouldn’t have enough cash to solve the climate crisis in one fell swoop. That would cost between $300 billion and $54 trillion, experts posit, though it’s hard to put a price tag on something that no one has ever done before. So, Bloomberg is running for president as an alternative —– though if any billionaires reading this aspire to throw a chunk of change at the environment in other, far less campaign-intensive ways, plenty of people could use your checks.


Anyway, back to Bloomberg. In a statement supplied to MTV News, he touted his work as mayor of New York City, and also because the philanthropic efforts that came soon after that, as indicators of his commitment to fighting the climate crisis. “Younger generations didn’t cause the climate crisis — nevertheless they are going to bear the heaviest burden of President Trump’s inaction. They deserve a leader who is fiercely devoted to protecting our environment and our communities, and supplying a future we can rely on — not the climate denier we have in the White Home today,” he said.


Bloomberg’s proposed climate plan aims to decrease national greenhouse emissions by 50 percent inside the next 10 years, and allocate Residents of the United States with “clean energy jobs.” As Vox notes, his plan is smaller in scope largely because it focuses on what a president can do without approval from other branches of government.


Pete Buttigieg


How does he hope to save the planet? Aim for the middle, kind of?


Buttigieg’s plan would cost roughly $2 trillion — which is on the lower end of the fiscal spectrum compared with some of the other presidential candidates’ ambitions. The plan aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, 20 years later than the guideline set in place for the Green New Deal. “Under my administration, we’ll create three million well-paying jobs that generate tidy energy and build resilient infrastructure, develop new wind and solar farms to replace coal and gas flowers, and appoint a EPA administrator who actually cares about environmental protection,” the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told MTV News in a statement. He would also end the practice of distributing subsidies to fossil fuel companies, which cost the U.S. 10 times as much as education annually.


“They mention young folks are idealistic. Yet we’re not progressive because of our idealism, we’re progressive because of our reality,” Buttigieg, who is the youngest of the Democratic frontrunners plus a millennial, mentioned. “We can’t afford to fail any time it comes to solving the climate crisis. That’s why this will be my top priority.”


Tulsi Gabbard


How does she desire to save the planet? ???????????


“‘Environmentalism’ isn't a policy choice. It is segment of our everyday lives,” Gabbard, a representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district, writes on her website. “Central to our rights as Residents of the
U.S., To life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is having tidy air to breathe, tidy water to drink, and safe food to eat. These key elements are core to the existence of every human being, also it is my personalized commitment to fight to protect and improve them.”


Her website features plenty of quotes on the environment, nevertheless no comprehensive plan; she did not return MTV News’s request for comment by publication time. The LCV rated her voting history as being 96 percent in-line with pro-environment thinking.


Amy Klobuchar


How does she hope to save the planet? Again, aim for the middle!


The Minnesota senator has a pretty solid track record once it comes to the environment: She’s voted in a pro-environment manner 96 percent of the time, the LCV notes. Her climate plan is more moderate than those of other candidates; in it, she promises to allocate $1 trillion to an infrastructure package that “will create good-paying union jobs and give workers the skills they require to succeed in the green economy.” Her plan largely relies on the work of executive firms, and aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. She did not return MTV News’s request for comment by publication time.


Bernie Sanders


How does he desire to save the planet? Three words: Sixteen. Trillion. Dollars.


The Vermont senator wants to dedicate over $16 trillion to the climate crisis, which makes it the most expensive plan of any of the other candidates running for president. Even so, Sanders thinks we’ll make the cash back, he instructed them New York Times in August any time as soon as he unveiled the radical plan.


Sanders, who was first elected to the Residence of Representatives in 1991 and moved to the Senate in 2007, has a lifetime voting record that is 92 percent consistent with pro-environment efforts, according to LCV. And that voting record reflects in his Green New Deal plan, which holds fossil fuel firms responsible for the damage they’ve wrought on the environment and the people who live near their sites by setting aside cash to support fossil fuel workers in their transition to “cleaner” jobs, and “[making] the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies.” (The Sanders plan mentions the term “fossil fuel” 91 times, in case you want a cursory glance at where his focus lies.)


“We must build a unprecedented grassroots movement that is powerful enough to take [the fossil fuel industry] on, and win,” Sanders’s plan states. “Young people, advocates, tribes, cities and states all over this nation have already begun this key work, and we are going to continue to follow their lead.” The candidate earned the endorsement of the youth-led environmental advocacy sort Sunrise Movement in January. He did not return MTV News’s request for comment by publication time.


Tom Steyer


How does he aspire to save the planet? Focus on the communities.


Steyer is the founder of NextGen America, a political action order that supported progressive candidates, largely by deploying field organizers to engage with young voters. “I have long imagined that tackling our biggest challenges as a society requires getting young people involved and empowering them to take action,” he mentioned in a statement to MTV News, highlighting the group’s work “contact[ing] millions of young people, mobilizing them to take back our democracy and registering hundreds of thousands to vote.” Steyer stepped down as CEO shortly soon after announcing his candidacy; the categorize has since been hit with a wave of allegations by ex-staffers who said their time there was marked by daunting objectives, high turnover rates, and workweeks that all however ensured burnout. (The company told Splinter it tweaked its policies soon following the 2018 midterm election.)


Steyer has never contained political office before, so there really is no voting record to judge; in his past life running a hedge fund, he invested in fossil fuel industries. (In December, he Instructed them Verge he has divested from those corporations) His climate plan largely empowers communities to distribute specific solutions for the issues they face, branded as self-determination; however communities aren’t the main perpetrators exacerbating environmental mess — companies are. Steyer’s plan also promises that the government will hold the agencies that largely created those problems responsible for their decisions, nevertheless it’s unclear what that will look like behind community “investment.”


“Young people understand that we have one chance to get this right and we can’t wait to take action on saving our planet,” Steyer mentioned in his statement. “My administration will finally break the corporate stranglehold of our government, moving our nation towards a 100 percent tidy energy economy and creating millions of good paying jobs while doing so, mostly in densely unionized industries.”


Donald Trump


How does he hope to save the planet? Well, he says he does, but….


Once MTV News reached out to the Trump re-election campaign for this story, we were connected to White Residence Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere, whose beginning response was “America’s pollution problem? What is that?” Eventually, we got this statement:


“Other countries around the world are obsessed with the Paris Climate Accord, which shackles economies and has done nothing to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and those on the radical left are pushing the Green New Deal, which would outlaw cows, cars, and planes,” Deere mentioned. “President Trump knows economic growth and environmental protection don't need to conflict, implementing typical sense policies that have kept our air, water, and environment tidy, including lower C02 [sic] emissions, while also making one of the strongest economies in recent history.”


Although all of that is pretty misguided. The idea that the Green New Deal is looking to “outlaw cows” likely comes from the FAQ page that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) released as soon as they unveiled the plan; in it, they explain that they aim to “get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll have the ability to completely get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, yet we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building In the United States, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant many trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.” Both the agriculture and transportation industries currently have outsized impacts on the U.S.’S carbon emissions, although it’s most likely that the idea to “fully get rid” of those mainstays was a quip whose context the Trump administration has repeatedly twisted.


If anything, the Trump administration’s policies are more likely to hurt the environment than keep it tidy. According to the New York Times, the current administration has initiated rollbacks on at least 95 rules and policies that protect or otherwise impact the environment. And for several people, their economic well-being is inextricable from the climate crisis: Farmers have seen smaller crop yields due to flooding and temperature shifts, and four in 10 Puerto Rican residents felt Hurricane Maria’s impact through job loss or lost work hours. Even so, the Trump administration filed paperwork to fully withdraw the U.S. From the Paris Climate Agreement by November 4, 2020 — one day soon after this year’s election. And the opening draft of his offered financial range for 2021 would decimate the Environmental Protection Firm, and hobble other essential programs.


Elizabeth Warren


How does she wish to save the planet? Full-court press, baby, let’s go!


“Climate change is an existential threat, and we are running out of time — yet I have hope,” Warren mentioned in a statement to MTV News. “I have hope thanks to young people who are going out on strike, organizing, working each and every day to get global leaders to wake up to the urgency of this crisis. If we're going to save our planet, we need to listen to the voices of young people and make big, structural change.”


The Massachusetts senator pointed to a myriad of her plans, which she designed to work in tandem to fight the climate crisis as it manifests on every front. Among other policies, she has suggested a path forward toward further protecting public lands; bringing the U.S. Military to net-zero carbon emissions by 2030; and to lead the charge in protecting the world’s oceans, whose ecosystems are at major risk due to rising water temperatures and acidity levels. According to the LCV, Warren has a nearly impeccable voting record of 99 percent on environmentally conscious matters.


“I will fight for a Green New Deal to transform our economy and save our planet,” the senator promised. “Young people know that climate change is a threa