Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley was the first in Sunday night’s debate to name “climate change” as a priority, saying as president he would put forth a plan for a 100 percent clean energy grid by 2050.
“I believe the greatest business opportunity to come to the United States of America in 100 years is climate change,” the former governor of Maryland said at the opening of the NBC Democratic debate. He was laying out his agenda from day one if he becomes president.
Neither opposing candidates Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton mentioned climate change, although Clinton did mention renewable energy as part of her economic growth strategy, but she did not go into any depth on the issue
O’Malley said “I put forward a plan to move the U.S. to a 100 percent clean electric grid by 2050 and create 5 million jobs along the way.”
Climate change is the number two priority for him just behind wage growth. Climate change has not been a core issue in most of the GOP and previous Democratic debates. Environmentalists have criticized candidates for not making confronting the threat of climate change a key part of their presidential bids.
