Joe Biden unveils $1.7 trillion climate plan to end US carbon emissions by 2050

Former Vice President Joe Biden released a plan on Tuesday to address climate change that would pour $1.7 trillion of investment into achieving 100% clean energy and net-zero emissions by 2050, in part using revenues from reversing Trump administration corporate tax cuts.

The front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination unveiled the plan after weeks of pressure from rivals and green activists who claimed he was not taking global warming seriously enough and would rely too heavily on Obama-era ideas. An adviser to his campaign had told Reuters last month he was seeking a “middle ground” approach that he hoped would please environmentalists without turning off the blue-collar voters who swept President Donald Trump to power in 2016.

"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 said in a social media video, saying his proposals would go "well beyond" the policies that were set when he served with former President Barack Obama.

The proposal would invest $1.7 trillion over 10 years in clean energy research and modernizing infrastructure to eliminate the emissions of the greenhouse gases that scientists blame for accelerating climate change and its effects - including rising sea levels, droughts, floods and more frequent powerful storms.

“The Biden plan will be paid for by reversing the excesses of the Trump tax cuts for corporations, reducing incentives for tax havens, evasion, and outsourcing, ensuring corporations pay their fair share,” according to a press release from his campaign.

In a nod to labour, the plan also promised to "reinvigorate" middle-class manufacturing jobs, including those that would likely be lost in fossil fuel sectors like coal mining.

"We can create new industries that reinvigorate our manufacturing and create high-quality, middle-class jobs in cities and towns across the United States," the plan said.

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency foundered in 2016 after she upset blue-collar voters by claiming her aggressive climate proposals would put “a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” underscoring the pitfalls of environmental politics.

President Donald Trump successfully billed Obama-era environmental protections as job-killers to his supporters, and has directed his administration to roll back many of them since taking office.

The Sunrise Movement, one of the main activist groups that had pressured Biden to take a tough stand on climate change in recent weeks, called the plan a "good start" and took some credit for its ambition.

“This plan makes it clear: climate change is going to be a defining issue in the 2020 election, and we've raised the bar for what it means to be a leader on climate," Sunrise president Varshini Prakash said.

Hits from the left

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.

Biden said that two aspects of the Green New Deal are now at the core of his plan - the urgency for greater ambition to address climate change and the notion that "our environment and our economy are completely and totally connected."

Biden also said, for the first time, that he would not accept donations from fossil fuel companies or executives.

His plan consists of several executive actions that Biden would take on his first day in office, including creating an "enforcement mechanism" to put the US on track to achieve 100% clean energy and a net-zero emissions goal by 2050, and re-committing the United States to the Paris Climate Deal, an international accord to fight global warming that Trump opposes.

It lists several other measures that would build on Obama-era policies like regulating methane emissions from oil and gas facilities, developing new fuel economy standards for cars, adopting new energy efficiency standards for appliances, promoting advanced biofuels, and accelerating the use of carbon capture, which limits emissions from coal plants and other industrial facilities.

For working-class voters, the plan promises to secure coal miners' benefits and increase coal company payments into a federal program to help miners battling with black lung disease. It would create a task force to help communities facing closures of coal mines and power plants gain access to federal funds and private investment "to help create high-paying union jobs.”

The plan also addresses environmental justice issues, and promises to protect vulnerable minority and Native American communities with stronger protections for clean water.