7th Dem Debate Finally Takes a Real Crack at Climate

January 15, 2020

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(Our Daily Planet) So we finally got a primary debate where there was a somewhat robust conversation about climate change! One of the most important moments of the debate was when Senator Bernie Sanders was asked to stay on the topic of trade and he answered that trade and climate change are one and the same–and he wouldn’t vote for a trade deal that doesn’t account for climate change.

This fueled a conversation that we shouldn’t silo climate change as an issue but rather talk about all the ways that it affects traditional kitchen table issues like, the economy, healthcare, immigration, and national security. Overall this is something that the candidates did well throughout the course of the night.

Here’s how each candidate brought up climate change throughout the night:

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The Conclusion: It was noticeable how much more robust answers to climate questions were in a smaller debate setting. There finally seemed to be an actual dialogue occurring over the fine points of each candidate’s plan–rather than the free-for-all it’s been in previous debates.

However one important question that was missing was how we start to curb our addiction to fossil fuels. Joe Biden elaborated on the need to build new bridges and highways but that only encourages individual car ownership. In the next debate candidates should be asked about transportation and about the cost of doing nothing. We didn’t hear a lot about what Donald Trump’s vision for the future means for our planet and quality of life, and this is an important distinction to make for American voters. READ MORE

DEMS WANTED TO TALK ABOUT CLIMATE: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Democratic presidential candidates spar over trade deals (Des Moines Register)

WHO WON THE SEVENTH DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IN IOWA? ANALYSIS OF THE WINNERS, LOSERS AND HIGHLIGHTS (Newsweek)

Factbox: Climate change plans of the leading U.S. Democratic candidates (Reuters)

Iowans push 2020 candidates to focus on climate change (The Hill)

Excerpt from Des Moines Register: Klobuchar used the (trade) question to criticize the Trump administration’s waivers to oil companies, which have allowed them to avoid blending ethanol and biodiesel in the nation’s fuel supply, under a federal mandate called the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has granted 85 waivers to oil refineries, freeing them from using 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel. The exemptions have killed demand for 1.4 billion bushels of corn used to make ethanol, industry officials say.

Klobuchar said she met with an eastern Iowa worker, who cried showing her the uniforms of the workers who lost their jobs when the biodiesel plant closed.

“That plant had been shut down because of Donald Trump's trade policies,” Klobuchar said. “These are real people hurt by Donald Trump's trade war.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Newsweek: But no one could top Klobuchar's impressive bait-and-switch from a rather dry question on the USMCA to a heart-felt story of workers left behind by Trump's trade war.

"I will never forget going to Crawfordsville, Iowa. I went to this plant and there was one worker left in that plant. That plant had been shut down because of Donald Trump's trade policies, and because of what he had done to those workers, giving secret waivers to oil companies and ruining the Renewable Fuel Standard. That worker brought out a coat rack of uniforms and said, 'These are my friends and they don't work here any more.' And their names were embroidered on those uniforms: Derek. Mark. Salvador. These are real people hurt by Donald Trump's trade war."

It was a smart move by Klobuchar, whose campaign claimed she is the only candidate on tonight's stage to have visited all 99 Iowa counties. With just weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, that non-stop campaigning is something she could have leaned into even more. READ MORE

Excerpt from The Hill: While climate change has been given short shrift on the debate stages, it’s been widely discussed as the state races toward its first-in-the-nation caucuses on Monday.

Record-setting flooding devastated nearly every corner of the state in 2019 as heavy rains swelled the Mississippi River at Iowa’s eastern border and the Missouri River at its west.

More extreme weather kept farmers from planting and harvesting, costing an estimated $2 billion in damages and heightening nerves in a state dominated by agriculture

The importance of climate as a campaign theme in Iowa signals how the issue is starting to become more prominent at a time when environmental groups are pressing lawmakers for strong action.

“I think that is a dramatic change from conversations that were happening in Iowa just four years ago,” said Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, which has hosted events with a number of the Democratic candidates in the race.

Climate change was rated as the second most important issue in Iowa ahead of the caucuses, according to polling by the Des Moines Register, which showed 90 percent of respondents calling it “extremely important” or “important,” second only to health care.

That marks a change, according to Lehman, who said candidates previously had been “much more reluctant to engage farmers on this for fear of a backlash.”

What’s changed is that farmers are increasingly raising climate change as a threat to their livelihoods — and seeking measures to address it.

“What’s been exciting this caucus cycle is just about every Democrat has talked about how farmers and agriculture need to be part of the solution,” said Tim Gannon, a Democrat who ran for Iowa agricultural commissioner in 2018 and farms corn and soybeans outside the town of Mingo.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren(D-Mass.) released a plan to combat climate change through agriculture just a day before the release of a United Nations report that advocated rethinking land use, including transitioning farming toward no-till practices and planting cover crops, both of which can help sequester carbon.

“Climate change threatens every living thing on this planet. And the urgency of the moment cannot be overstated,” Warren said during an event in January. “Farmers can be part of the climate solution.”

Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden introduced a plan for rural America that focuses heavily on connecting agriculture to manufacturing.

“We’re not bringing back old jobs. We’re going to create entirely new bio-based manufacturing jobs that are going to deal farmers into the benefits of a new low-carbon economy,” Biden said over the summer.

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Ethanol has also featured prominently in the climate change discussion between candidates and Iowans, as corn growers and ethanol manufacturers are a huge mainstay of the Iowa economy.

“Everybody from Bernie on one side to Sen. [Amy] Klobuchar on that side is talking about a low carbon future in some way, shape or form,” said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers.

“Every candidate I know of has used biofuels as a way to bridge that discussion into rural America,” he said.

The biofuel discussion is closely linked with dissatisfaction with President Trump’s trade wars as well as the rising number of waivers that exempt refineries from blending ethanol into their products.

Klobuchar (D-Minn.) blasted the administration during a fall trip to the state, saying the president has done “irreversible damage” to the ethanol industry.

“Discontent with some Trump administration action as it relates to farming has opened up the door for them to come and talk to farmers,” Shaw said. “Linking farms and rural prosperity to a low-carbon future with climate changes is at the center of what I’ve seen.”

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Nonetheless, state Sen. Rob Hogg (D), who organized climate change events across the state, hopes it will end up having an impact on Iowa caucusgoers.

“Climate change is important in Iowa for the same reason it’s important to lots of people across the country which is, basically, we’re seeing the consequences of it on a daily basis,” he said. READ MORE