The Democratic Party platform for the U.S. presidential election this year will include a commitment to pursue “every tool available to reduce emissions now,” including carbon pricing, after a final round of late-hours negotiations between supporters of presumptive nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton and erstwhile challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
“Democrats believe that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases should be priced to reflect their negative externalities, and to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy and help meet our climate goals,” states the draft platform, while will be formally adopted by delegates to the party convention in Philadelphia later this month.
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“A carbon tax was part of Sanders’ big push on climate policy during the primary race, while Clinton has resisted calling for anything that can be misconstrued as a tax hike in an election year,” Grist reports. The draft platform also “marks the official death among Democrats of the once-popular talking point that natural gas can be ‘a bridge fuel’ to renewables. The platform now pits clean energy against gas by incentivizing wind, solar, and renewables over new natural gas-fired power plants.”
The Republican platform committee, meanwhile, voted unanimously to declare coal “an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource.” That language “just happens to reflect the same talking points favoured by the lobby group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity,” Grist notes.
