Examining Andrew Yang's Climate Plan

 So, here we are, now we're looking at Yang's climate plan. For the record I plan to return to Yang's 2020 platform later as part of a discussion of what we've lost recently with Forward's "centrist" direction, but for now, I want to focus on climate. I remember reading Yang's plan in 2020 and believing it was one of the most progressive I've seen, except for maybe Bernie's. And even then, much like Build Back Better, it's more scaled down than Bernie's, but still seemed to have some advantages over it if I recall, so let's take a look.

Our planet is a mess.

The past four years have been the four hottest on record, and July 2019 was the hottest month ever recorded. Greenland is expected to lose 440 billion tons of ice this year, a rate that was the “worst-case scenario” for 2070. The West is on fire, the middle of the country is flooded, and the Atlantic is seeing hurricanes of increasing frequency and intensity. In Alaska, salmon are dying because of the heat. All the while, the top 5 US oil and gas companies posted revenues over $760 billion (1), and the federal government subsidized the industry to the tune of $26 billion annually (2).

Climate change is an existential threat, and we need to recognize that we’re already living through the negative effects. The increase in natural disasters is costing us hundreds of billions of dollars, and the total cost of climate change will run into the trillions while taking an untold number of lives. And the people who are most affected by these impacts of climate change are the least able to deal with it – economically disadvantaged and minority communities face a disproportionate burden.

The right time to deal with this crisis was decades ago. We’ve waited too long, so we need to act fast and recognize that all options need to be on the table in order to adapt to the changed world we live in while mitigating behaviors that make it worse and reversing the damage we’ve already done. We can’t dismiss any ideas – especially not those that have support from the scientific community – or rule anything out because it doesn’t fit our ideological framework.

Why have we so far barely made a dent in what we need to do in order to combat this crisis? When 78% of our fellow Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, it’s hard to mobilize people to care about the massive problem of climate change. Many think, “I can’t pay my bills. The penguins will have to wait.” It’s impossible to think about the future if you can’t feed your kids today. We need to get the economic boot off of the throats of our fellow Americans so everyone can get their heads up and start facing this threat head-on.

 So this is his introduction. it's pretty straightforward. Nothing special. He does seem a bit more pessimistic than say, Bernie or Warren who are like "we can fix this if we can only mobilize all of the resources of our whole economy to combat this challenge", but to be fair, is he wrong?

Also, this quote:

We need to get the economic boot off of the throats of our fellow Americans so everyone can get their heads up and start facing this threat head-on.

 I really wish he practiced what he preached here. This is why it was a mistake to remove UBI from forward. But I digress.

We need to bring the full force of America to bear on this problem, or we will fail, and the world will suffer. My approach is five-pronged:

1. Build a sustainable economy by transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, upgrading our infrastructure, and improving the way we farm and use land. Public financing options will allow individuals to make the right decisions for their families.
2. Build a sustainable world. The United States, throughout history, has led the world in times of crisis. We’re the most entrepreneurial country in the history of the world. It’s time to activate the American imagination and work ethic to provide the innovation and technology that will power the rest of the world.
3. Move our people to higher ground. Natural disasters and other effects of climate change are already causing damage and death. We need to adapt our country to this new reality.
4. Reverse the damage we’ve done. Research needs to be done on removing carbon from our atmosphere, cooling the planet and rejuvenating ecosystems.
5. Hold future administrations accountable. We need to pass a constitutional amendment that creates a duty on the federal and state governments to be stewards for the environment.

 So, just to briefly discuss each priority:

1) Yes, this is the absolute biggest aspect of any climate plan.

2) Yep, I like how he's taking the whole "we need to lead the world in this" too. Again, nothing we do will be good enough if the rest of the world doesn't modernize too. 

3) I remember he got a lot of flak for this one at the debates. Remember the "we're gonna give everyone a UBI and move people to higher ground" comment?

I know I keep being like "what about UBI?" whenever economic justice comes up in these plans, but UBI is a potent solution there. Either way, I understand why this was cringe. People wanted to hear about his climate plan and his tone was "oh well nothing can be done, we need to move people to higher ground and UBI can help." Made him look like a candidate with only one policy as a panacea for everything. But UBI, as much as I'm for it, isn't a panacea to literally everything. If UBI solved climate change, I wouldn't be discussing specific climate proposals. 

Timeline

We need to set an aggressive but realistic timeline in order to hit the targets required to ensure that our way of life can continue, we don’t lose trillions of dollars, and we don’t lose thousands of American lives in the process.  

Achieve net-zero emissions goal – 2049

• 2025 – Establish net-zero standards for new buildings
• 2027 – New nuclear reactors begin to come online
• 2030 – Zero-emission standard for all new cars
• 2035 – 100% emissions free electric grid
• 2040 – Net-zero for all transportation sectors
• 2045 – 85% methane recapture
• 2049 – Fully green economy

So like the other more moderate proposals, he's aiming for 2050 as the goal. Good. And just looking at his priorities, I like some of them. Especially the focus on nuclear. I remember that's one massive advantage I felt Yang had over Bernie in 2020 in their respective climate plans. 

Anyway, this seems like a solid timeline, if we're going 100% green by 2035-2040 and focusing on recapturing greenhouse gases after that, we should definitely be complying with IPCC standards here.

Budget Overview (Direct Spend)

$400 billion invested in Democracy Dollars over 20 years

$10 billion invested in a debt forgiveness fund for rural co-ops 

$200 billion invested in Grid Modernization over 15 years

$50 billion invested in the next generation of safe, clean nuclear power over 5 years

$250 billion invested in net-zero emission ground transportation over 15 years

$80.8 billion invested in net-zero emission air transportation over 15 years

$285.5 billion invested in sustainable agricultural, forestry, and land methods use over 15 years

$5 billion invested in research for sustainable materials over 5 years

$45 billion invested in National Labs over 15 years

$3 trillion to finance loans for household investments in renewable energy over 20 years

$60 billion invested in vocational and apprenticeship programs over 15 years

$70 billion invested in combating rising sea levels over 20 years

$25 billion in pre-disaster mitigation grants for high-risk hurricane communities over 10 years

$122.5 billion invested in fire prevention and combating wildfires over 5 years

$90 billion to establish and fund the Climate Change Adaptation Institute over 20 years

$800 million invested in geoengineering research methods

$200 billion discretionary spending to fund additional necessary programs over 20 years

TOTAL INVESTED OVER 20 YEARS: $4.87 Trillion

Ya know, I wish more candidates did this in their plans. I like line item lists like this. Lets me get a good big picture look at what's going on and where the money is spent. 

Anyway, just to go into a few things that stand out-

Democracy dollars- why is this in a climate plan? Is it supposed to be about owning the fossil fuel companies? It's an nice proposal of his, but it doesn't seem like it belongs in a climate proposal.

Nuclear power- I know lots of people keep saying nuclear power is so expensive (especially from the Bernie camp), but this seems CHEAP. 

But yeah, most priorities here seem pretty standard for these plans. This plan is more expensive, but it's over 20 years. If we cut it in half to estimate the 10 year costs (which might be inaccurate since some programs are only done early on), we're talking around $2.44 trillion, or $244 billion a year.

That's significantly more than Build Back Better ($170 billion a year) or Buttigieg's plan ($150 billion a year), but significantly less than Warren's $1 trillion a year plan or Bernie's $1.6 trillion a year plan. So this is in the same overall price bracket as the more moderate proposals.

Ending the Influence of Lobbyists and Oil Executives

Americans want their kids to breathe clean air and drink clean water. They want to leave a healthy planet for their children.

Oil companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists to stop that from happening. The oil and gas industry spent $124.5 million on lobbying in 2018 (3). This was a smart investment on their part considering they receive $26 billion annually in direct subsidies and far more in various indirect subsidies every year. 

When your industry is looking at losing trillions of dollars, you’ll spend nearly anything to prevent regulation, especially when those regulations will devastate your industry. It’s time for us to end the power of lobbyists in the climate change debate. We need to ensure the workers in these industries are taken care of, but the executives can’t continue to weaken the planet to line their own pockets.

As President, I will:

• Ban anyone who serves in my administration from lobbying for a period of time after they leave their position.
• Ensure representation in my government for workers who will be displaced by our shift to renewable energy and a sustainable economy, so that we are sure to find solutions that enhance their quality of life.
• Refuse to hire anyone who formerly worked as a lobbyist for oil, gas, or coal company, or served in an executive capacity at one of those companies.
• Pass a Democracy Dollars bill, putting over $20 billion directly in the hands of the American people annually to support politicians they agree with and wash out the influence of lobbyists.

I mean, any anti corruption is good, and I guess it's related to climate here. Thanks for elaborating, Yang. Yeah, reducing the role of fossil fuel influences is a positive thing here. 

As President, I will:

• Create the American Scorecard to better measure our environmental quality and sustainability, and treat it as a primary measurement of our economy and wellbeing.
• Pass legislation requiring large corporations to document the externalized costs of their environmental impact.
• Pass Climate Risk Disclosure bills to incentivize divestment in oil companies and other heavy polluting industries.

I'm going to go a little more abridged to focus on the meat of the proposals. This relates to his American Scorecard idea, where he wanted to replace GDP as a measure of the economy with other measures focused on well being as part of his "Human Centered Capitalism" ideology. 

And it's good to include metrics related to the environment. I once took a class in grad school that focused on environmental sustainability to some extent. And one thing they taught was that in America, the economy is the center of everything. But, maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it should be one factor that goes into a better life. I like how Yang's human centered capitalist ideology has that kind of approach.

A Sustainable Economy – Energy

Residential and commercial energy consumption accounts for somewhere around 50% of emissions (4). We can’t move to a sustainable economy without getting our energy from renewable sources.

Tackling our energy supply is the biggest move we need to make in order to create a sustainable economy. We need a multi-pronged attack plan to decrease emissions in our energy sector, and we need to utilize all options available to us in order to ensure that we can hit the targets set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to limit climate change to manageable levels.

It is impossible to know right now which clean energy technologies are going to be the most efficient options in 10 or 20 years. The goal of having a renewable energy plan is to have a starting point of where we will invest our time and research. First and foremost, it is important for our government to be able to adjust its plans as technology and more efficient solutions develop.

 Yes, absolutely. Getting off of fossil fuel is THE biggest thing that could reduce emissions. 

As President, I will:

• End all fossil fuel subsidies and use that money for retraining programs and subsidies for low-income individuals to transition to sustainable energy sources.
• Stop all new leases for oil and gas companies on public lands, and end any currently existing lease.
• Fight against any new pipeline or similar infrastructure, especially any that would cut across contested land.
• Create more aggressive Clean Power Plan targets, and end the grandfathering-in of old plants that haven’t been sufficiently upgraded to trigger NSR.
• Provide a $10 billion debt forgiveness fund for all rural co-ops that are relying on non-renewable sources who want to replace their plants with renewables, and provide public financing/securitization options for rebuilding with sustainable energy.
• Commit to equipping and powering all federal buildings with American-made efficiency and clean energy technology.
• Work to create standards allowing common elements of systems (e.g., batteries) to be easily replaced as the technologies develop.
• Create a plan to recycle elements (e.g., batteries) that become obsolete. 
• Set sustainable infrastructure standards for all new buildings; buildings that are being rebuilt or upgraded; and all federal buildings.

Obviously I'm cutting out a lot of blah blah blah for whomever reads this, but this section was talking about how we used to support fossil fuel companies even though we know it's bad for us. And now Yang is trying to stop that. 

So he wants to stop all suvbsidies and government help for that folks, and shift us toward renewables. Again, seems necessary, seems useful. I like it.

As President, I will:

• Propose a carbon fee and dividend system that:
  • Sets an initial carbon tax of $40/ton, which would increase in regular intervals of $5/ton for the first 4 years and then $10/ton until it hits $100/ton.
• Create a border carbon adjustment to protect American goods that would:
  • Charge a fee on imports from countries that don’t impose a similar carbon fee, or some type of carbon tax.
  • Provide a rebate on exports to countries that don’t impose a similar carbon fee, or some type of carbon tax.
• Dedicate at least half of the money raised through the fee to dividends specifically designed to help Americans afford transitions to sustainable energy sources and vehicles.

By the way when he talks about dividends here, I suspect he's referring to his UBI plan, which does have a carbon tax as a part of it. 

Reforms and criteria would include, but not be limited to:

• Installation of smart meters
• Free, easy access for account holders to interval data
• Streamlined interconnection processes
• Short interconnection processing turnarounds
• Tariffs designed to encourage renewable systems of all sizes
• Implementation of active or passive control standards that enable real-time management of distributed assets not under direct utility ownership
• Methods of differentiating and optimizing the financial concerns of administration, transmission, production, and consumption, as separate grid-system functions
• Net de-carbonization from the installation and retirement of various assets
• Stakeholder education and outreach, including account holders, developers, and contractors
• Robust IT security for metering and control systems
• Demonstrating a continued interest, past the end date of the Race to the Top, in continuing to implement these changes

As President, I will:

• Create a “Race to the Top”-style competition to drive innovation in our grid system by the private sector.
• Invest $50 billion in incentives for private companies and investment in new modern infrastructure
• Invest $150 billion in upgrading our current electric infrastructure systems.

This is all referring to grid modernization. Yeah, that needs to be done too. No other real comments here. 

Nuclear Power Stopgap

Nuclear power is a crucial component in the move towards creating sustainable, carbon-free energy for the United States. However, many people – including some other candidates – dismiss it out of hand.

Why does it have such a bad reputation?

Two reasons.

First, the public’s perception of its safety has been skewed by TV shows like Chernobyl and The Simpsons. Second, nuclear waste is dangerous and long-lasting, and disposing of it is expensive.

Both points are less of an issue with modern reactors.

When the OECD (11), NEA (11), and NASA (12) analyzed the actual danger of nuclear energy compared to other sources, they found that it caused orders of magnitude fewer deaths than fossil fuel-based energy. And that’s not even considering the long-term impact of climate change from burning fossil fuels.

With modern reactors, safety is drastically increased, and nuclear waste is drastically decreased. After the completion of the Manhattan Project, America explored the option of using thorium as a potential source for civilian nuclear power. In the 1960s, the United States experimented with a thorium reactor to generate power, but the project was shelved in the 1970s. All the while, research into nuclear fusion devices continued in labs throughout the US.

Why did we go with uranium instead of thorium? Uranium is used in nuclear weapons; thorium isn’t. Yet another benefit to using thorium as a power source!

Thorium reactors have a few key advantages over traditional uranium reactors:

• One ton of thorium could potentially produce roughly 200 times more energy than one ton of uranium and 3.5 million times more energy than one ton of coal. (13)
• There is roughly 3 times more thorium on Earth than uranium, and we are already mining it as a byproduct of other rare-earth element mining. Right now, we’re literally just burying it back in the ground.
• Thorium mining is substantially safer than uranium mining—thorium’s primary ore, monazite, is retrievable from open pits which receives greater ventilation than the underground shafts from which uranium is mined, decreasing miners’ exposure to radon.
• Thorium reactors produce less waste than uranium reactors. Thorium waste remains radioactive for several hundred years instead of several thousand years.
• Thorium-based molten salt reactors are safer than earlier-generation nuclear reactors, and the potential for a catastrophic event is negligible, due to the design of the reactor and the fact that thorium is not, by itself, fissile.

Nuclear isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s a solid solution for now, and a technology we should invest in as a stopgap for any shortfalls we have in our renewable energy sources as we move to a future powered by renewable energy.

As President, I will:

• Invest $50 billion in research and development for thorium-based molten salt reactors, and nuclear fusion reactors, to provide a green energy source for Americans.
• Engage in a public relations campaign to update the reputation of nuclear reactors. 
• Have new nuclear reactors start to come online by 2027.

Okay, I'm freaking quoting all of this one so I can say it louder for the people in the back. NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT BAD. But yes, I like this idea. if thorium is so plentiful we're digging it up and literally burying it back in the ground, and it can be used for nuclear energy, it seems like a win win. And if it's safer than uranium, also a win. So I like this. I really like this. This is one aspect of Yang's plan that stands out for me.

As President, I will:

• Immediately create a system similar to the ZEV program in California, and require all vehicles starting with 2030 models to be zero-emission
• Invest $50 billion in EV charging stations in nonurban areas.
• Create a $200 billion grant program to states to convert their public transportation systems (trains, buses, school buses) to electric vehicles.

And yes, like always, we need to switch to green vehicles and build the infrastructure to make them work. 

As President, I will:

• Pass the Aircraft Emission Act, requiring:
  • All commercial, private, and government aircraft to move toward low-emission standards as is technically feasible by 2040.
  • Government investment of $2 billion in carbon capture technologies research and $9.5 billion over 15 years in installing carbon capture systems that can equal out the remaining limited amount of air travel emissions.
  • Government investment of $300 billion over 15 years into research for alternative aircraft fuel.

I like this too. We need aircraft to use less carbon intensive fuels. If we can't figure this out, we might need to switch to high speed rail like the lefties want, which would arguably be less convenient in a lot of ways. I highly prefer solutions that allow people to live as they are, without demanding they sacrifice and settle for an inferior solution when possible. 

I know people might ask why I think people should work less then, because working less in my ideal world would be a voluntary cultural change with its own set of inherent goods shifted by UBI changing the market incentives, and culture shifting allowing the idea to be more acceptable over time. I ain't anti growth even, I just support balance.

Again, economy should be one aspect of our lives, not the center of it.

As President, I will:

• Provide grants and guarantee profitability for farms that experiment with new, sustainable techniques.
• Increase farm bill subsidies by $75 billion over the next 15 years for farms that experiment with new, sustainable techniques.
• Invest $2 billion in research for vertical farming techniques.
• Direct the Department of Agriculture to provide reports to states and private enterprises to help them improve their grazing and livestock land management.
• Work with states to determine sustainable crops for their areas, and suggest changes as climate change continues to advance.
• Increase funding to biogas programs by tripling the current annual mandatory funding for biogas to $200 million (26). 
• Authorize a $500 million increase to federal agencies tasked with maintaining land to increase afforestation while rejuvenating high-carbon ecosystems such as peatlands, wetlands, rangelands, and mangroves.
• Invest in research for drought-resistant crops (27).
• Provide $300 million in tax credits to incentivize supermarkets to waste less food, either through donations or inventory management changes, and to source more local food.

Yeah a lot of this seems positive. Changing how we do agriculture seems to be a major aspect of reducing greenhouse emissions.

As President, I will:

• Fund $500 million in research over 5 years into ways to:
• Decrease the carbon footprint of manufacturing concrete.
• Make concrete carbon neutral or negative.
• Utilize alternative materials – including alternatives to concrete – that can help us combat climate change.

Yeah I remember in my initial research concrete was a possible cause of climate change.

A Sustainable Economy – Data

Planning for a sustainable economy isn’t just about addressing current electricity needs. It’s also about addressing the electricity needs of the future. One of the largest areas of growth in this regard is computing and data storage.

The world is using hundreds of terawatts of energy for data storage, and the US makes up a substantial portion of that (29). This energy consumption is also set to double every few years. We need to stay ahead of this problem as we generate and store more data.

The government needs to fund research into solutions for this problem, from increased efficiency, to better and smarter cooling solutions, to storing data in space (where temperatures and vacuum make storage more energy efficient, and solar energy is plentiful).

As President, I will:

• Fund research into any method that could lower the energy requirements of data storage.

 Huh, this is interesting. I don't recall anyone else talking about this. And it makes sense. The internet is powered by servers and computing is, collectively, very energy intensive. Reducing that load is good. 

To go further and build on this, I wonder if we can do something about crypto. Crypto is apparently terrible for the environment, and extreme disruptive of hardware markets (seriously, as a PC gamer with a 2017 era PC, screw crypto).

Heck, I actually am kind of concerned about the direction of PCs in general in recent years. As we shift toward CPUs with more and more cores, and whatever nvidia is planning to do with the RTX 4000 series coming up, PCs are getting more power intensive. We used to have "high end" CPUs with wattages of 95-125W. Now we're looking at like double that. GPUs used to be reasonable, with maybe 200-300W on the high end with more mainstream consumer cards being 150ish. Now we're looking at something like 450W for the next series.

It's insane. Most people would tell people to buy 500W PSUs but im kind of glad im using a 750W looking forward. 

But this isn't good for the environment. You got people doing crypto with this stuff, and even the millions of gaming PCs, if they start doubling power consumption, that ain't good.

Perhaps there should be some efficiency standards on PC parts. I know part of the problem is manufacturers are pushing clock speeds and the like to the limit, even if something like a mild 10% reduction in performance could greatly reduce power consumption. I guess overclockers will be overclockers, but honestly, perhaps we could do with slightly less performance for greatly reduced power consumption.

I know when you overclock, it often greatly increases the power consumption and heat just to get a measly 10% performance boost.

As President, I will:

• Create a new, distributed National Lab system, with a $3 billion annual budget that allows for many different types of partnerships and organizations to work together to solve some of the biggest energy problems we face.
• This system will lower the bureaucracy and hassle of working under a government contract so that scientists, engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs can focus on innovating.

I'm not exactly sure what this national lab stuff is about, but it sounds good if it leads to more research on climate change.

As President, I will:

• Create the Renewable Energy Building Association – REBA – to loan up to $3 trillion over 20 years to individuals to purchase heat pumps, solar panels, batteries, and other technologies for their residences. If households choose to take advantage of this, they will pay off these loans at a 3% (or lower) interest rate and will end up paying less annually than their previous energy bills.

Ugh, this I don't like much. Other plans were giving people grants for stuff. Tax credits, stuff like that. Literally subsidizing it. Yang is pushing loans? I don't want loans. Just give them the money. I know he's for UBI, but still, subsidies for good purposes are acceptable IMO. We are saving the planet after all.

Jobs

The scale of the work that we’re going to need to embark on is staggering and exciting.

As Saul Griffith, the founder of Otherlab, puts it:

We need to manufacture electric heat pumps for 120 million American homes and 6 million commercial buildings. We need to manufacture 200+ million electric vehicles. We need 90 million solar rooftops, tens of millions of wind turbines, and billions of batteries, not to mention new biofuel industries, new farming methods and technologies, and new approaches to forestry.

And while many of these manufacturing jobs will be automated, the installation and maintenance of these systems will create good, middle-class, local jobs that will keep individuals employed for decades to come. We’ll need to establish vocational and apprenticeship programs that will train American workers to install, maintain, and repair these systems, and then ensure that all Americans who so choose can receive this training, including through programs in high school.

As President, I will:

• Ensure $4 billion in annual funding for vocational and apprenticeship programs to meet the demand for installation and maintenance/repair technicians for the new, sustainable economy (30).
• Expand the high school curriculum to include programs to train individuals who want to enter one of these careers.

I know this is where I start cringing, but given he's the UBI guy and talks about automating a lot of this work, I can understand where he's coming from here. He does seem to be pushing work as a means to an end here. Again, climate bills are going to create jobs. It's inevitable, and arguably positive in some ways. I just dislike the job worship other candidates tend to push here. But if a job needs to be done, it needs to be done. So I could see encouraging people to learn to install this stuff. Still, my dad was in HVAC and yikes this work isn't for everyone. You need to be young, in good shape, and mechanically adept to really do it, and it does end up destroying the body over time. Still, someone needs to do it and providing training seems fair. 

Build a Sustainable World

The United States is the most innovative and entrepreneurial country in the history of the world. We should be leading the world in the development of technologies to combat climate change. US turbines and solar panels should be powering the world.

Instead, we have a political party that’s fighting against climate legislation tooth and nail, millions of Americans who deny that anthropogenic climate change exists, and a world that’s leaving us behind.

This must change.

We need to recommit to the Paris Agreement. But that’s only a beginning. It’s time that we retake our role as a world leader. After all, we’re only 15% of global emissions. While that’s disproportionate to our population, it also means that, even if we get to zero emissions tomorrow, the world will continue to warm.

Let’s rebuild our alliances and use our industry and innovation to provide clean energy to the world, thus making new allies and rebuilding the liberal, democratic world order that has kept us safe for the past seventy years.

As I said with the other guys, leaving Paris was a huge clusterfudge (thanks Trump) and rejoining it is necessary. And again, he's right, if we don't get the rest of the world on the same page as us, we're screwed. 

Powering the World

The US is innovative and extremely capable of developing cutting edge green technology. The private sector will be more motivated to invest time and energy in developing this green technology if companies can trust that they will be able to sell their products and technological advancements overseas. 

When foreign governments want to buy goods from private US companies, the Export-Import Bank (EXIM Bank) finances the loan that allows foreign governments to purchase those goods. The EXIM Bank can make certain goods appear more attractive to other countries, by offering better financing options for different goals, like lower interest rates. Let’s use its powers for good by making it cheaper for other countries to buy US sustainable energy technology.

As President, I will:

• Use the EXIM Bank, or create a new, Green EXIM Bank, to aggressively export US green technology throughout the rest of the world.
• Direct the State Department to engage in climate diplomacy, forming relationships with developing nations that are looking for partners in building an energy infrastructure that’s sustainable.

While I like this idea, we're back to loans and financing. I'd rather give stuff to them as a matter of foreign aid, and encouraging these countries to manufacture stuff locally if possible. Although i guess this isn't terrible. 

As President, I will:

• Ensure that any trade negotiation includes stringent environmental standards.
• Ensure that any trade deal doesn’t include carve-outs or exclusives for oil, gas, or coal.
• Renegotiate any trade deal that includes carve-outs for fossil fuel industries, including the ISDS exceptions in NAFTA/USMCA.

Yep, trade deals should reflect these standards.

As President, I will:

• Cut off or re-examine investments in projects that aren’t environmentally sustainable.
• Increase foreign aid to developing nations to help cover the cost of any project that is environmentally friendly.
• Create tax incentives for individuals to invest in foreign corporations or projects that are environmentally sustainable.

This seems to be about competing with China, which is far less environmentally friendly, suggesting if we don't get involved and help other countries advance with this stuff, that China will help them industrialize in much dirtier ways.

So yeah, I am for this.

Positive Use of Military Expertise

Both in our country and abroad, poor communities will suffer the most as climate change accelerates. Many people all over the world are already being displaced from their homes due to climate change and natural disasters, and the displacement is only going to get worse. 

In 2017, 18.8 million people had to relocate within their country due to natural disasters and climate change (31). Experts predict that soon, these displacements will not be able to stay internal. A recent UN Report predicts several regions where conflict and violence will be exacerbated by large numbers of refugees that need to cross borders due to climate change. 

Several Pacific Islands, including Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu, and the Marshall Islands are predicted to go underwater within a few decades (32). Most of these islands already have plans for relocating their entire population should a cyclone or catastrophic disaster hit tomorrow that submerges their entire island underwater. Small islands all over the world face the same threat. Most of these islands do not burn fossil fuels and have done nothing to contribute to climate change, yet they will soon be without a home country.

Climate change is a destabilizing force. The military considers it to be a threat multiplier. Over the past century, we’ve used our military to project our power abroad, and that’s often led us to engage in wars without a clear benefit to the US, or in regime change. Let’s change that. Let’s use our military to project our power abroad by stabilizing areas impacted by climate change, helping countries build or rebuild their infrastructure to be more sustainable, and ease the movements of climate refugees as areas become uninhabitable.

As President, I will:

• Direct the Pentagon to proactively identify areas that are becoming destabilized by climate change and offer military assistance in stabilizing and rebuilding the region, improving its ability to withstand climate change.

This sounds good on paper, but I worry about how it would actually work in practice. Having US military guys around, even if only to do something like "nation building", often ends up having stigma attached to it, and yeah. Well intended but I'm not sure this is always a good idea. Needs more investigation IMO.

As President, I will:

• Research coastal communities that are likely to be impacted by rising sea levels and provide property owners with information about risks and options.
• Make up to $40 billion available in subsidies, grants, and low-interest loans to individuals who wish to elevate or relocate their homes, or move to higher ground.
• Help communities plan for rising sea levels with expertise and information.
• Invest $30 billion in high-risk cities to build seawalls and water pumps, upgrade roads and sewer systems, and rejuvenate beaches to serve as barriers to rising sea levels.

Subsidies and grants (on top of UBI of course), sure. I once again don't like Yang's focus on loans though. I don't wanna put people in debt. I hate the concept of debt. It just turns people into slaves and violates my indepentarian principles.

Of course if people have a UBI perhaps signing on would be more voluntary?

Still, not huge on this concept.

As President, I will:

• Invest $25 billion over 10 years in helping communities that are likely to be impacted by repeated hurricane and flood damage to make their communities more disaster-resistant through pre-disaster mitigation grants.
• Reevaluate the way FEMA and the NFIP determine where structures can be rebuilt, taking a stricter stance against rebuilding in danger zones.

Yeah, as Carlos Mencia said once in reference to rebuilding New Orleans: "whose idea was this? Aquaman's?"

Focusing on making communities more resistant and discouraging building where not feasible is good. 

s President, I will:

• Quintuple the budget for the U.S. Forest Service to $24.5 billion for at least 5 years, and specifically tailor it to focus on fire prevention, and promote partnerships with local experts on combating wildfires in their areas. This will more than pay for itself by preventing megafires. 
• Appoint a Secretary of Agriculture who recognizes the importance of preventing megafires using science-backed techniques.
• Work with federal agencies such as the EPA to adjust how specific metrics are measured to take a more long-term view of the costs and benefits of prescribed fires.
• Work with Congress to pass legislation aligning incentives for states, developers, and homeowners towards fire prevention and avoiding high-risk areas.
• Establish a National Fire Insurance Program that provides insurance for homeowners in high risk fire zones, with a stipulation that homes must take preventative actions such as defensible space and reevaluation standards in case locations are determined to be dangerous for rebuilding.

This is in reference to forest fires and seems to be a more adaptive measure. Which is good, I feel like most other candidates focused more on prevention, but Yang is like "this is already happening" and is trying to deal with the consequences. Very smart.

As President, I will:

• Establish a Climate Change Adaptation Institute with a starting annual budget of $4.5 billion to monitor the ongoing effects of climate change and propose new adaptation measures, including:
• Better urban planning, better farming methods, and better land use, especially with respect to water management during droughts.
• Educational drives to inform people on how to cope with heat waves, and prepare treatment centers to quickly respond to and treat individuals suffering from the effects of a heat wave.
• Better equipping local officials to respond to emergencies such as floods, droughts, landslides, mudslides, avalanches and outbreaks.

Again, more adaption to stuff already happening.

First Options

Certain geoengineering options are easy to reverse, or benign enough that we can feel safe deploying them without much further testing. For example, planting millions of new trees would store large amounts of carbon. Ethiopia recently planted 350 million new trees, and more countries can engage in similar projects. We should also engage in ocean afforestation, seeding the oceans with microalgae.

Additional carbon capture technologies can help us to remove a lot of the carbon from the air, a process that we know is safe because trees have been doing it for longer than humans have existed. Not only that, but scientists largely agree that technologies in this area must be a part of any climate program (54).

The government should fund research into carbon capture and storage (CCS) and promote its use at all point sources. We should also invest in research into direct air capture (DAC), scrubbing CO2 from the ambient air. This process is less efficient, so we need to ensure that we can scale it up – there’s a lot of interesting research being done into this area with materials that can passively absorb CO2, as well as more active methods that are becoming more efficient.

Different organizations are researching the use of carbon capture to create building materials, carbon-neutral fuels (e.g., BECCS), and even ethanol. The federal government should encourage this research while still ensuring certain safety guidelines. We can also use this captured carbon to improve our soil (e.g., biochar). We can also take smaller steps, like packing gravel against the bases of glaciers to slow down their melting.

Finally, certain solar radiation management techniques are safe. For example, spraying salt water into clouds makes them larger and brighter, which will reflect more sunlight into space.

Now he's focusing on reversing the damage by focusing on carbon capture. This is good. I like the focus on trees and algae. That's probably the best way to reverse the damage.

I'm not sure how realistic his fixation on reflecting the sun back into space is. I guess the cloud thing is interesting, but eh, not sold there.

Emergency Options

While the above solutions are important to investigate and can bend the curve to give us more time or serve as a partial solution to the climate crisis, we should also prepare for the worst. There are feedback loops that we don’t understand that could quickly lead to a catastrophic event. If it comes to that, we need to be prepared with options that have potential side effects that are more desirable than the alternative: climate collapse.

Two primary ones to consider are space mirrors (yes, space mirrors) and stratospheric aerosol scattering.

Space mirrors would involve launching giant foldable mirrors into space that would deploy and reflect much of the sun’s light. This method would be extremely expensive, which is why it should be investigated as a last resort. However, since we would be able to “undo” the mirror after deployment if needed, it’s less permanent.

Stratosphere aerosol scattering, on the other, would be a drastic response to the climate crisis. 

When volcanoes erupt, they spew sulfur dioxide into the sky and reflect sunlight particles away from the earth. The massive eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 was recorded to help push global temperatures down half a degree over the following 2 years. If scientists can find a way to burn sulfur in the stratosphere, then they could mimic the positive effects of volcanoes eruptions on climate change and their ability to help keep the earth cool (55).  Bill Gates has recently backed a study to explore the feasibility of this method, but there are many dangers to it, which is why it (and other, similar methods) require research (56).

As President, I will:

• Provide $800 million to NASA, the Department of Defense, and NOAA to research, experiment with, and test geoengineering methods that will either give us more time to deal with climate change, or give us options should we hit a climate tipping point of which we aren’t aware.
• Convene a global summit on geoengineering. Many researchers in the US and other countries are doing work in this field – if we bring them together we can formalize and accelerate our learning and build a global approach. 

 Space mirrors? Now he's sounding like a James Bond Villain. I'm not sure how this will work. I like his innovation, but yeah. It sounds like "SOLAR FREAKING ROADWAYS" all over again.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the attempt, but yeah. This is where Yang's "futurist" streak starts sounding a little science fictiony.

Holding Future Administrations Accountable

Even if we make great headway in mitigating and adapting to climate change, there will still be voters and elected officials who choose to discount the basic scientific facts of our changing world. We need to prevent future administrations from untangling the significant advances we make in combating climate change.

I support the calls for a constitutional amendment requiring states and the federal government to protect, preserve, and improve the environment.

Good luck with that!

Conclusion

So, while I don't agree with every aspect of this plan, this is one of the best. Yang just meshes so well with me ideologically when he stands for something where I feel like his climate change plan was more no nonsense and didn't focus so much on JERBS JERBS AND MORE JERBS! But instead focused on how to get things done. 

The only plan that I thought might be better here is Biden's, but after rereading it and what I wrote again, eh, I like this one better. It's very focused, very innovative, and solves all of the problems I want to just about. It's not as cheap as some plans, but it's still not gonna break the bank, and honestly, I'm not gonna be particularly picky between $150B a year and $240B a year. 

I will say I didn't like some aspects of it, there's too much of a focus on loans when other plans just subsidized the same stuff and gave it to people. And toward the end some of his solutions sounded a bit science fictiony.

Still, this is what Yang is capable of when he puts his mind to it. This is arguably the best plan of the five I've reviewed so far and I would probably endorse this one if I had to endorse any. Build Back better is a close second.