Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: The front runner is making it extremely difficult for a great many of us [View all]shanny
(6,709 posts)now he's behind. Now it's back to Obama's policies and the Paris agreement...and an "all of the above" approach to energy.
It is not enough. The worst-case scenario in climate models is never "worst" enough, and has to be continually revised. The Paris agreement with its target of 2 degrees Celsius max. was doomed from the start: if every nation fulfilled its commitments, temperature rise would be closer to 3 degrees.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden, 76, seems to have a very different understanding of the climate crisis than the worlds leading climate scientists. Several top advisers to the former vice-president previewed his middle of the road plan on the issue for Reuters on Friday. Hell have the US rejoin the Paris agreement, which Trump has said he will leave exit as soon as that documents terms allow in early 2021. Hell preserve existing regulations on emissions and fuel efficiency that the current administration has targeted. Like Obama, hell embrace an all of the above energy strategy, with plenty of room for new natural gas development and exports as well as carbon capture and storage, to indefinitely extend the life of the coal industry.
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Scientific reality is a different story. A recent report from Oil Change International found that allowing the industry continuing to explore for and extract all the new fuel deposits they intend to would run directly counter to the goals inscribed in the Paris agreement. As the IPCC report indicates, meeting those will mean that global natural gas usage decline by 74% by mid-century and arguably much faster in the US. Staying below 2C means keeping 80% of known fossil fuel reserves buried underground.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/13/joe-biden-is-a-climate-denier
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided