Sanders has a big vision for tackling #climatechange & has "set a marker in terms of the pace and scale of spending he's proposing" as I told @nytimes. That's thrilling supporters, but leaving many experts (myself included) less impressed. Read more here: nytimes.com/2019/11/14/cli…
My conversation with @LFFriedman was of course longer than the single quote that made the above article. Here are a few more of the thoughts on Sanders climate plan I shared...
1. Public spending & publicly-owned utilities (power marketing authorities) are big levers at government's disposal. We can put them to use to build a cleaner energy system. But they are a small slice of the wide range of policy levers and tools that should be brought to bear.
2. The ambition of a climate plan can't be measured in simple metrics like total $ or deadline you say you'll reach zero CO2. Those make good stump speeches & can rally crowds (not unimportant). A plan's true test is how likely it is to effectively reduce emissions and how fast.
3. This is much harder to assess. Climate change and decarbonization are hugely complex tasks. Rebuilding the entirety of our energy system in a few decades is required. The best plans will grapple with and overcome this complexity...
...that means grappling with and having credible strategies to overcome political challenges, technical & engineering challenges, and ensure broad social license for transformative changes across many sectors and parts of the country and economy.
This is where Sanders's plan leaves me (and several other energy and climate experts interviewed) less impressed. It's good stump speech material. It's big and bold. I'll give it that. But it doesn't evidence a lot of nuanced understanding of the scope and complexity we face.
I realize that's somewhat lacking in concreteness. I'll have more to say another day. But 'm stepping in to an all day workshop now on the politics of decarbonization. I can thank Sanders & other candidates (hi @JayInslee!) for making this a very non-academic topic these days!
