Joe Biden Gets a C+ for His Climate Plan

Caroline Brehman/Congressional Quarterly via ZUMA

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Joe Biden has proposed a $1.7 trillion climate plan over ten years that includes the following major components:

  • Net zero emissions by 2050.
  • $400 billion (over ten years) on R&D targeted at: grid-scale storage; small modular nuclear reactors; zero net energy buildings; using renewables to produce carbon-free hydrogen; decarbonizing industrial heat needed to make steel, concrete, and chemicals; leveraging agriculture to remove carbon dioxide from the air; and sequestering carbon dioxide from power plants deep underground.
  • Special attention paid to R&D on nuclear power and carbon sequestration.
  • A climate adaptation agenda.
  • A lengthy plan to “rally the world” to address climate change.
  • All the usual shoutouts to climate justice and protection for fossil-fuel workers who lose their jobs.

This is . . . surprisingly good. There are two key components to any good climate plan: (a) it can’t rely on lifestyle sacrifices that people simply won’t accept, and (b) it has to be truly global. The United States accounts for about 15 percent of total carbon emissions, so even if we spend trillions in subsidies to become carbon free it will represent only a drop in the ocean unless the rest of the world comes along.

Biden’s plan doesn’t say this as explicitly as I just did, but its emphasis on R&D and global action is obvious: nearly 20 percent of the report is taken up by R&D and another 20 percent by the need to work with other countries. What’s more, Biden has obviously taken some expert advice on the R&D front. His suggestions for general areas to spend money on are quite good.

That said, Biden’s suggestion of $400 billion in R&D is laughably small. Multiply by ten and you might have something serious. This is the place where Biden’s natural caution and centrism work against him. He’s on the right track here, but climate change is the single biggest catastrophe our planet has ever faced. If we’re going to do something about it, we’re going to need the single biggest response our planet has ever put forth.

So: right idea, but pitifully small. I’ll give it a C+. A sharp bump upward in the R&D budget would get Biden a solid B.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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