https://vimeo.com/441511871

David Roberts of Vox, says that Biden's climate strategy targets many key areas that scientists say must be addressed. David Roberts joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Paul JayHi, I'm Paul Jay, and welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast.

One has to judge the Biden climate plan, released on July 14th, in two ways. First, compare it to President Trump's plan. Okay, we've just done that. Now compare it to what scientists say is necessary to face up to the climate crisis. Is Biden's plan more substance or fluff? Is it a political tactic aimed at winning over the left's vote, or is it a real plan for reaching critical targets that scientists say we must hit to avoid climate catastrophe? Of course, it could be both.

Then judge it according to the realities of the balance of power, the massive political clout of the financial sector, which mostly owns the fossil fuel sector and most everything else. Can effective climate policy be implemented without winning over or weakening or winning over by weakening the BlackRocks and other financial titans? So far, finance is learning green rhetoric, but doing next to nothing real. The only climate policy they really support are plans that can be financialized from which they can make money like cap and trade. I'm not moralistic about that. If climate crisis can be averted by policies that make Wall Street rich? Well, so be it. There's just zero evidence that effective policy can be merged with the short term profits of finance. That's a difficult paradox given the urgency of the situation.

When discussing this, there's always a tension between what's necessary and what seems politically possible. The problem is, “Without preventing warming, reaching and passing two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels, we're looking at the end of human civilization as we know it.” That’s a quote from Australia's top climate scientist, but many others have said it. In 2019 U.N. annual emissions gap report states that, "If all the countries that made commitments to the Paris agreement fulfilled those promises completely, we're still headed for two degrees warming by 2050 and three degrees by the end of the century, and that three degrees, many think is a conservative estimate.” I'll say it again.if the Paris objectives are fully met, we hit almost unlivable conditions in 30 years and a catastrophic tipping point in 80 within the lifetime of our kids.

Of course, the Paris agreement targets are not being met, especially after four years of presidential climate denial. The IPCC says the world must avoid hitting 1.5 degrees warming because once 1.5 degrees is hit, it might be impossible to prevent further warming. And even at that level, the consequences of extreme weather will cause terrible damage. Scientists are saying we must have a rapid phase out of fossil fuels, particularly coal, mass deployment of solar and wind energy and the eradication of emissions from cars, trucks and airplanes. Does the Biden plan accomplish that? Does it at least create a space to discuss more effective policy? Or given Biden's history, is it a ploy, as many Sanders supporters fear? Now joining us to discuss the Biden plan and the political struggle in the Democratic Party that gave rise to it is David Roberts. He's an energy writer at Box, where he covers climate change, clean energy and politics. Thanks for joining us, David.

David RobertsGlad to be here.

Paul JaySo let's start by talking about the politics of this. The Biden plan came out of a task force that was created and worked out as a plan between Biden and Bernie Sanders, the AOC co-chair of the Task Force with John Kerry. So talk about the politics of how we got to this task force and this pla...