WASHINGTON – From the early days of his presidential campaign, progressive climate advocates viewed Joseph R. Biden Jr. with deep skepticism. He refused to fully endorse the Green New Deal. He opposed a complete ban on fracking. Young activists bitingly criticized him and, on occasion, he was openly dismissive of his concerns.
But now, less than four months before Election Day, Biden is urgently moving to unite and energize his party around his candidacy, aware of the need to involve younger and more liberal voters, and to make sure that they appear in November. On climate issues, there are signs that Biden’s allies and some of the party’s top progressives have quietly begun to forge new common ground.
In recent weeks, supporters of Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, his main rival in the primary Democratic presidential race, have met privately on Zoom, part of several joint task forces that the two contenders established to generate recommendations. of policies at the core of national priorities and to facilitate party unity. After two months of those talks, members of the working group representing both camps say they have finalized a set of ambitious short-term climate goals that they hope Biden, the suspected Democratic candidate, will incorporate into their platform.
“I think we were able to make significant progress,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, who chaired the climate panel with former Secretary of State John Kerry, said in an interview. Representative Donald McEachin of Virginia, a Biden ally who was also on the task force, called it a “collaborative process” that developed far-reaching policies.
Still, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who previously clashed with Mr. Biden over his approach to combating climate change, noted caution.
“Now what he does with those recommendations is ultimately up to him,” he said. “And we’ll see what that commitment looks like.”
Those goals, according to three people familiar with the working group’s decisions, include committing to seeing the U.S. electricity sector powered entirely by renewable energy by 2035 and a swift transition to energy-efficient buildings. They are also looking for the Day 1 promise to begin developing new vehicle efficiency standards, and to include unions in the discussions, to replace and improve the Obama administration measures that President Trump has weakened.
The group, which met amid economic collapse during the coronavirus pandemic and protests against racism and police brutality, was especially attuned to linking the climate crisis to employment and fighting to help low-income communities already facing huge health consequences from pollution, members of the workforce said.
“I think where we have really come a long way is in areas regarding environmental justice and addressing frontline communities,” said Ms Ocasio-Cortez.
Biden, the former vice president, proposed a $ 1.7 trillion plan last year aimed at achieving 100 percent clean energy and eliminating the country’s net carbon emissions by 2050.
But how he responds to the working group’s recommendations, and if progressives in the group walk away feeling listened to, he will test the ability of his campaign to navigate an issue of great importance to rising forces in the Democratic Party.
“The work of the task teams has been collaborative and productive, and Vice President Biden looks forward to reviewing their full recommendations,” a campaign spokesman, Jamal Brown, said in a statement. Regarding Mr. Biden’s approach to the issue, Mr. Brown said: “As President, Biden will take immediate action to address the urgency of the climate emergency and create well-paying jobs that provide an opportunity to join a union, what which is especially important now that tens of millions of Americans are out of work. “
In the past few weeks, Mr. Biden has made a number of proposals to climate activists. He has increasingly linked environmental issues with racial justice, and said in a recent climate-focused fundraiser that, if elected, in his first 100 days as president, he would send Congress “a transformation plan for a revolution clean energy. ” Last week it announced the formation of an advisory council focused on mobilizing climate-focused voters.
Former Vice President Al Gore said that Mr. Biden had asked for his endorsement shortly before Earth Day, which Mr. Gore gave, and that the two men have since had multiple conversations about climate change. Gore said Biden had asked for advice and suggestions in areas of climate policy, although he declined to offer details.
“I think he has the science pretty well and understands the great potential to create millions of jobs,” Gore said, adding: “I have the impression that you have made the decision to go for the climate.”
At the first meeting of the working group in May, Mr. Kerry made a remarkable gesture to the young progressives. After opening the discussion, he handed the forum over to Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a group of youth-led climate activists who support the New Green Deal, to discuss how Biden could win over the majority of the climate movement. passionate wing, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
In a video that Ms. Prakash posted on Twitter after the second meeting, she declared “cautiously optimistic” that Biden’s allies had taken harsh climate policies seriously.
“I don’t think Joe Biden has internalized how to communicate and reflect the real and existential fear, anxiety and anger that millions of people in this country feel about the crisis,” Prakash, 26, said in an interview shortly. after the task force was created. But, he added, “I think he really cares about the issue.”
Many advocates remain skeptical. When Ms. Prakash posted her video, she was inundated with responses calling her “naive” and declaring that Mr. Biden was not serious about ending the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Some of Mr. Biden’s allies have suggested that he is committed to fighting climate change, but he also understands the challenge of establishing far-reaching agreements in a partisan climate.
“I certainly am willing, and I know the vice president is, to push him as much as possible,” said former Senator Bill Nelson of Florida.
But, he added, “three quarters of bread is better than having no bread at all.”
Since the beginning of his presidential career, Mr. Biden has drawn a fine line between defending the action of climate change and trying to involve union members who still depend on jobs in the fossil fuel industries, as well as moderate republicans who don’t like Mr. Trump but oppose aggressive action to curb greenhouse gases.
But some public opinion polls seem to indicate that building a big tent on climate change may be easier than previously thought.
Recent polls by the Pew Research Center have found that, despite a prolonged partisan divide on the scientific fact that human activity is the main driver of global warming, 60 percent of Americans see climate change as a ” great threat. ” More than half of Republicans and Republican-minded independents are also in favor of stricter measures, such as restrictions on emissions from power plants and stricter regulations on car emissions.
The League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group, and the Center for the American Progress Action Fund, which is affiliated with a liberal think tank, recently tested messages that could persuade voters to support Biden. They found that voters who were still “at stake” leaned toward the center-right but were also in favor of prioritizing action to tackle climate change.
However, Mr. Biden still faced challenges with young people, according to a report released by the groups, which was based on online polls in May of voters in 11 potentially competitive states.
“It is not enough to have a lot of good policies and a strong and correct goal,” said John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress and adviser to former President Barack Obama on climate change. “You have to show that this will be a priority and that you really passionately understand the risk associated with it.”
He said that Mr. Biden needed to combine his “middle class Joe” brand with weather issues. “He will never imitate Al Gore on the science PowerPoint,” said Podesta, “but what he can do is express passion for creating an economy that works for everyone.”
The future of natural gas, and its implications for employment, is a major flaw that separates Obama-era climate policy leaders from the new generation of activists.
Natural gas produces about half of the carbon emissions. Much of the Obama administration’s energy strategy focused on promoting it as a “bridge fuel” to steer the country away from the dirtiest fossil fuels until the price of renewable energy fell.
These days, the average cost of new wind or solar power is cheaper than the costs of keeping most coal-fired plants running, according to an analysis last year by two energy research groups. And renewable energy generation in the United States has now outstripped coal, according to the Federal Energy Information Agency.
However, in places like Pennsylvania, a state that Trump earned by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, the natural gas industry is responsible for thousands of high-paying union jobs. So when Mr. Biden, during a timely exchange with Mr. Sanders at the debate stage in March, declared “no new fracking,” some allies were alarmed, including former Governor Edward G. Rendell, who said that He called the campaign to express concern.
Mr. Biden has proposed ending new fracking leases on federal land, but not a national ban, something his campaign quickly clarified.
Andrew Baumann, a Democratic strategist and pollster, said there were limits to how much Biden could push on climate issues without facing political risks, but that he was “pretty far from it.”
“It is possible to go too far,” he said. “But the amount that you have to go bolder before you reach that level is actually much higher than people think.”
Lisa Friedman reported from Washington, and Katie Glueck of Leawood, Kan.
