Experts: Biden’s climate plan is ‘bold’ but lacks some specifics

Joe Biden’s $2 trillion plan to tackle climate change and stimulate an economic recovery is “bold, ambitious, and visionary,” but lacks specifics on oceans and infrastructure planning, experts argue.

The plan Biden, the presumed 2020 Democratic nominee for US president, has proposed would take four years to roll out over his first term in office. It calls for increasing clean energy use in transportation, electricity generation, and buildings.

The plan sets an ambitious goal of decarbonizing the US power grid by 2035, on course with a larger target of the country achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The proposal also calls for establishing an Environmental and Climate Justice Division within the Department of Justice, aiming to create job opportunities in the clean energy sector while keeping racial and socioeconomic equity in mind.

In remarks former vice president Biden delivered in Wilmington, Delaware to announce the climate action plan, he said, “When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is ‘hoax.’ When I think of climate change, the word I think about is ‘jobs’—good-paying union jobs that’ll put Americans to work.”

“Its degree of boldness is really laudable—it’s not a business-as-usual, modest, or incremental climate plan,” says Peter Fox-Penner, director of Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy and contributor to the university’s Climate Action Plan.

“There’s a lot of really fantastic things in this, I could go on for a long time,” he says.

Still, there are a few details that could be fleshed out more, says Fox-Penner, Randi Rotjan, a marine ecosystems scientist and research assistant professor of biology, and Gregory Wellenius, an environmental health researcher and director of the Climate and Health program.

Here, the three experts weigh in on what they like about the plan and areas they think could be improved:

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