Our Charter and Platform 2020 Kitchen Table Talks

Kitchen Table Topics - Climate

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Democrats Abroad wants to know what issues matter to you as a Democrat living abroad. Your input can help shape DA’s 2020 Platform. Run a Kitchen Table Talk - information here - and make your voice heard!  Topics on Climate included below (scroll for the full list). Add your own through the Kitchen Table Talk New Topic form.  

Climate Crisis Legislation

Do you support the Green New Deal and similar legislation which enact policies that will immediately lower emissions through their implementation?

BACKGROUND

  • Climate breakdown is an existential threat to the global environment, human and nonhuman life, security and economies;
  • The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has determined that in order to avoid the most severe impacts of a changing climate the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions from human sources in half by 2030 and achieve net-zero global emissions by 2050;
  • The Green New Deal calls for a 10-year national mobilization effort, including the following goals and projects as much as is technologically feasible: building smart power grids; upgrading existing buildings and constructing new buildings to achieve maximum energy and water efficiency; removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and agricultural sectors; cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites;

REFERENCES

  • EQ Research, “States Chart Paths to 100% Targets,” https://eq-research.com/blog/100/ and Environment America, “Nine States Campaign for 100 Percent Clean Energy,” https://environmentamerica.org/news/ame/nine-statescampaign-100-percent-clean-energy

Renewable Energy

Do you support the premise that the US federal government should actively support an energy transition to a clean, renewable power system, to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2050, with binding interim deadlines at 2025, 2030, 2035, 2040, and 2045?

BACKGROUND

  • The dangerous and expensive threat of climate change is compelling us to eliminate sources of anthropogenic carbon pollution in order to avoid serious ecosystem degradation or
    even collapse;
  • Catastrophes continue to engulf our planet, including rising sea levels, intensifying
    storms, floods, landslides, melting glaciers, fires, desertification and more;
  • Even our life-support system on earth is jeopardized by a warming of more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels;
  • Renewable energy is now competitive with coal in 75% of cases, and will soon be less expensive than all fossil fuels;
  • Grid management and energy storage technologies are rapidly developing to meet the challenges of managing high volumes of renewable energy;
  • Renewable energies drastically reduce the pollution of our air, land, and water, and can provide the basis of a new “green” economy with plentiful jobs and adequate energy for our
    well-being and our industry;
  • Climate science has been under systematic attack by climate change deniers, including the present administration, with renewable energy research to be cut from $2.3 billion
    to $700 million in the 2020 federal budget;
  • Experimental and pilot programs have been developed to ease the transition from fossil-fuel related jobs to renewable energy and other jobs;
  • Markets alone are not capable of piloting a systems-level change, especially in the face of entrenched oligopolistic energy corporations with their subsidies, amortized infrastructure
    and assets, and established supply chains and delivery systems;
  • Democrats and Republicans alike have argued that alternative energy programs help ensure US energy security.

REFERENCES