Abby L. Harvey
GHG Daily
1/20/2016
Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday signed NextGen Climate’s “50 by 30” pledge, committing to support an energy system powering America with 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. “We hope she will continue to talk about solutions that are critical to prevent climate disaster and ensure our economic security,” NextGen Climate President Tom Steyer said in a release. Clinton is currently polling at 60 percent among those likely to vote in the Democratic primary, according to the latest Reuters poll.
The NextGen pledge goes a tad farther than the Clinton campaign’s previously released climate plan, which was announced in July 2015. Clinton’s plan contains little detail but does lay out two measurable goals: the installation of more than half a billion solar panels throughout the nation by 2020 and an increase in renewable generation to 33 percent of total national energy generation by 2027.
The Clinton climate plan says that, under current policy, renewable energy generation in 2027 would account for 16 percent of total national generation. That sum will rise to 25 percent of total generation with the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, carbon emission standards for existing coal-fired power plants, according to the Clinton plan. Clinton says through her climate agenda another 8 percent of total energy generation will come from renewables, for a total of 33 percent renewable energy generation. It is unclear how Clinton intends to reach the 50 by 30 target.
One of Clinton’s opponents in the primary, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, signed the NextGen Pledge in September. O’Malley, who Reuters found is currently polling at less than 1 percent among those likely to vote in the Democratic primary, was the first to sign the pledge and the first Democratic candidate to release an energy plan. O’Malley’s plan goes quite a bit farther than the NextGen pledge, calling for the nation to transition entirely to renewable energy by 2050.
The only Democratic presidential candidate who has not yet signed the pledge is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Sanders, polling second in the field at 36 percent, has released an energy plan calling for a 100 percent “clean energy” system, but a deadline to meet this target it not mentioned. The Sanders campaign was not immediately available for comment regarding whether the senator would sign the NextGen pledge.
