What’s at Stake for the Climate in the 2016 Election?
BY MARIANNE LAVELLE
InsideClimate News, October 3, 2016
Following the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the gulf between the candidates has never seemed deeper, perhaps most alarmingly so on climate change.
Screen capture of debate by Bill B/Flickr, Creative Commons
The election shapes up as the most significant possible choice when it comes to climate policy. Clinton, though not committed to a swift transition away from fossil fuels, vows to build on the climate policies of the Obama administration and live up to U.S. commitments to the Paris accord. Trump, in contrast, pledges to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency and “cancel” the Paris agreement.
More fundamentally, the election is a choice between one candidate who accepts the global scientific and political consensus on the causes and cures for climate change, and one who rejects both.
“The 2016 presidential election can really be seen as the most important referendum on climate change, and on positive action to make the planet a livable place,” said Daniel Kammen, physicist and founder of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. “Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump differ more on clean energy and on climate change than on any other issue.” Read full story at: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30092016/stake-climate-change-2016-election-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-paris-clean-power-plan
The Steel Magnate Helping Trump Assail Pollution Regulations
BY MARIANNE LAVELLE
InsideClimate News, August 17, 2016
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been trying to appeal to voters in the Rust Belt by claiming that environmental regulations and one-sided trade deals are the primary culprits in the decline of U.S. manufacturing jobs. And he has chosen an economic adviser who’s been preaching that narrative for years, even as his business was booming.
Photo by Michael Vadon, Creative Commons/Flickr, 2015
As the chief executive of America’s biggest steel maker for 13 years, Dan DiMicco repeatedly went to battle against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. His company, Nucor, fought the EPA in court over its moves to curb greenhouse gases, and it was assessed one of the EPA’s largest penalties ever against a steel company for clean air violations. Nucor also funded climate change denial efforts. DiMicco has argued that U.S. efforts to control carbon emissions would further strengthen China’s unfair hand in winning business—and jobs.
In naming DiMicco to the team of 14 economic policy advisers he unveiled last week, Trump brings into his fold someone who may help him appeal to the voters he needs to reach in the economically distressed manufacturing regions in must-win swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana. Read full story at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15082016/donald-trump-economic-adviser-assault-trade-environment-regulation-epa-dan-dimicco-nucor
Can the Environmental Movement Rally Around Clinton?
BY MARIANNE LAVELLE
InsideClimate News, August 1, 2016
When the final balloons dropped on the political conventions, the environmental movement found itself surrounded by more than just some trash to sweep up. The surprising strength of Bernie Sanders’ candidacy had clearly pulled the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and the party platform to take a far stronger stance on climate change and environmental issues, but it also left many Sanders supporters disillusioned and the party’s normally reliable coalition of green group support wrestling with a big question: What now?
Photo by Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons/Flickr
The general election ahead is, by some predictions, going to be decided by a slim margin—most polls have Clinton with a slight lead over Donald Trump following the Democratic National Convention. And that could give the climate issue, which has failed to register heavily in any national election so far, the potential to make a difference in key states.
That puts the spotlight on the green groups that spent the primary season at odds and now are trying to figure out a way to work together. Because even if some of them haven’t come around to an endorsement of Clinton, they grasp the ramifications of electing a full-throated climate denier to the White House.
“The choice couldn’t be more stark this year and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters (LCV). Read full story at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01082016/environmental-movement-rally-hillary-clinton-climate-change-democrats-bernie-sanders