Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) made some dramatic remarks on the campaign trail over the weekend, telling a New Hampshire crowd that “we have exactly one chance left to defeat climate change – and that’s during the next administration.”
“When you have one chance at survival, we ought to take it,” he said, later clarifying to The Guardian that, at this point, he was that one chance at survival.
“If it’s not job one, it won’t get done,” he explained. “And I’m the only candidate that’s saying that right now.”
“I wonder the difference between talk and action,” he said Saturday. “Between bumper stickers and productive accomplishments. It can’t be just one of those things on your to-do list. It has to be a full-scale, full-throated commitment to get this job done.”
Despite Inslee’s claims that he could be the “last chance” to save humanity from climate change, he’s faced some tough questioning about his failure to lower greenhouse-gas emissions in Washington during his time as governor. They actually increased by 6.1 percent from 2012-2015.
Inslee has repeatedly emphasized that fighting climate change is the sole focus of his 2020 campaign. However, many other Democrats have also embraced the issue. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have all backed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) controversial Green New Deal resolution.
The current text of that resolution proposes “overhauling transportation systems in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible,” and “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability.”
One study estimates that implementing the resolution would cost $93 trillion over ten years.