Thread by @AlexSteffen

It is hard to overstate how awesome this is.

I may need to thread, briefly.

jayinslee.com/issues/freedom…

If we're serious about holding the line at dire climate change, preventing a genuinely catastrophic climate breakdown, we need to stop using fossil fuels.

(We need to do a lot more, but that's job #1.)

That means ending the fossil fuel industries.

https://twitter.com/alexsteffen/status/1010234256012873728?lang=en

Now, a presidential candidate's campaign has put forward a set of proposals to do just that:

"Freedom from Fossil Fuels: A Plan to End Corporate Welfare, Hold Polluters Accountable & Transition the U.S. Economy Off of Fossil Fuels"

This is crossing the climate politics Rubicon.

It pulls no punches:

"However, these climate pollution-reduction goals simply cannot be achieved unless America as a nation is prepared to take on the greatest and most powerful special interests that are holding back our clean energy future: fossil fuel corporations."

It calls for a complete end to fossil fuel subsidies:

"Yet even as fossil fuel corporations harm our communities... and endanger our future, they continue to benefit from billions of dollars in U.S. government subsidies and giveaways."

It calls for a ban on new fossil fuel wells and mines on public land, and "phasing out fossil fuel production nationwide."

It calls for a full restoration of enforcement of the nation's environmental laws, combined with putting a price on carbon.

Most importantly, in my mind, it calls for an end to building fossil fuel infrastructure.

"In order to realize our clean energy future, America must stop building the infrastructure of the past"

This is particularly amazing:

"Requiring all federal agencies to evaluate the lifecycle climate pollution and climate change impacts and vulnerabilities associated with all new major infrastructure projects..."

This is, in the current debate, a downright revolutionary proposal.

It goes on:
"reject permits for fossil fuel pipeline projects"
"Retiring and replacing all U.S. coal-fired power plants by 2030"
"Stopping fossil fuel exports"
ending ethanol
"every commercial fueling station must also provide electric vehicle charging services"
etc etc

But BY FAR THE BIGGEST DEAL HERE is the section that is titled simply

"Improving Corporate Climate Transparency"

That section is fundamentally about using enormous regulatory and financial leverage to help markets deflate fossil fuel companies' over-valuations.

#carbonbubble

"these climate change damages and the economic shifts they will entail could portend major shocks to financial systems"
"the U.S. federal government must help provide an off-ramp for investors away from fossil fuel holdings"

Here are the boldest proposals I've ever seen from an American elected leader for how to shift finance towards climate action & avoid a full-on carbon crash.

This is a whole different level of understanding when we are in the climate crisis.

#carbonbubble #disorderlytransition

Imagine living in a country where the political consensus lay somewhere between the ideas that microbes were a hoax & that vaccines were unproven and costly.

This is like a presidential candidate announcing universal free vaccination and a crusade to find a vaccine for cancer.