Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden pledged Tuesday to eliminate carbon emissions from power plants by 2035 as part of a plan to spend $2 trillion in his first term on clean energy and infrastructure to combat climate change.
Biden announced the plan ahead of a speech Tuesday afternoon in Wilmington, Delaware, on his “Build Back Better” economic agenda for recovering from the coronavirus, framing it as a way to combat climate change and rebuild sustainably.
Responding to climate change is a “once-in-a-century opportunity to jolt new life into our economy,” Biden said. “We’re not just going to tinker around the edges. We’re going to make historic investments that will seize this moment in history.”
Biden’s upgraded clean energy agenda, which he said would create 1 million “high paying union jobs”, delivers on the pressure he received from liberals who asked him to strengthen a plan he released during the primary to spend $1.7 trillion across 10 years to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 across the entire economy.
Young activists, in particular, have called on Biden to expand his climate plan with an eye toward setting new goals for the next decade in order to wean the country off of fossil fuels.
Indeed, a climate change task force convened by Biden in partnership with his former rival Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders recommended last week that Biden commit to eliminating carbon emissions from power plants by 2035.
The 2035 target is noteworthy because it allows for the use of nuclear power, the largest zero-carbon electricity source in the United States, along with wind and solar. Fossil fuel plants could continue running under such a target if they are equipped with carbon capture technology, an expensive proposition.
Some activists have called for strictly renewable power, which most experts believe is unachievable with current technology. Sanders explicitly opposed nuclear power during the campaign.
As part of his new plan, Biden also proposed “upgrading” or retrofitting 4 million commercial buildings and “weatherizing” 2 million homes over four years to make them more energy-efficient.
He pledged to make “major public investments” in electric vehicle infrastructure, including in 500,000 charging stations, and set a goal of all buses being zero-emissions by 2030.
And he aims to create a “cash for clunker” program providing consumers rebates to swap their gasoline-powered vehicles for electric ones.
Biden also reemphasized a pledge he made last week to make a $400 billion procurement of “made in America” products, materials, and services, including electric vehicles, in order to revive U.S. manufacturing.
As part of the $400 billion procurement, Biden promises to have the federal government purchase “tens of billions of dollars” of EVs and products such as batteries produced by U.S. companies.
Biden contrasted his approach to rebuilding with that of President Trump, who is focusing on streamlining environmental regulations to allow for faster approvals of pipelines, highways, bridges, and other traditional infrastructure projects.
“These aren’t pie in the sky dreams,” Biden said Tuesday. “These are actionable policies we can get to work on right away. The alternative is to ignore the facts, to deny reality, to focus only on the technology of the last century, instead of inventing the technologies that will define this century.”
The Trump campaign criticized Biden’s plan, claiming it would “kill” high paying union jobs in the fossil fuel industry.
