During the September 29 presidential debate, Democratic candidate Joe Biden asserted that he does not “support the Green New Deal.” It “is not my plan.” Instead, he supports “the Biden Plan, which is different.”
Put aside Biden’s silly claim that the Green New Deal “will pay for itself,” and ignore the fact that the Biden Plan states explicitly that “Biden believes the Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face.” What is much more central is the overriding policy objective of the Biden proposal: net-zero U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) “no later than 2050.” That policy goal is indistinguishable from those promoted by the several versions of the Green New Deal that have been proposed by various coalitions and organizations: All of them call for net-zero U.S. emissions of GHG by some year not very distant in time, typically between 2030 and 2050.
And so whether Biden prefers to call his plan a “Green New Deal” or the “Biden Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice” or anything else is utterly irrelevant. The net-zero goal inexorably drives the specific policies to be pursued, which cannot be anything other than a series of transformations — radical, massively expensive, and profoundly coercive. Transformation of the technological features of the U.S. power-generation system. Transformation of the technological features of the U.S. light-, medium-, and heavy-vehicle fleets. Transformation of the insulation and weatherization characteristics of tens of millions of industrial, commercial, and residential structures. Transformation of U.S. society by forcing much of the U.S. population into multi-unit housing in urban cores dependent upon public-transport systems. Transformation of U.S. agricultural practices. Transformation of the U.S. energy sector, substituting expensive and environmentally destructive fuels in place of conventional ones. And on and on.