Here's What's in Elizabeth Warren's Blue New Deal
Elizabeth Warren’s “Blue New Deal” is a 17-point plan to restock, protect, and harness the world’s oceans.
The Democratic presidential candidate highlights human costs like jobs and disaster relocation to emphasize how important these steps will be to protect and employ Americans.
This plan joins her many existing plans for climate, industry, and more.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading Democratic presidential candidate, has published a comprehensive "Blue New Deal," which she says is an essential counterpart to any Green New Deal plan. Earther reports that Warren is the first candidate to put forward an oceans-specific plan of this kind. So what's in her global oceans plan?
Warren opens with a quick and very dirty rundown of the state of the oceans, from their pollution levels to the people whose homes along the ocean’s edge are threatened by climate change. “Our safety, public health, food security, and infrastructure are at risk,” the plan says. “If we do not act now, things will only get worse, as climate change leads to more severe weather.”
There are three big sections in the plan, each with a number of individual bullet points.
“Rebuilding Our Blue Economy”
All three big sections are close in length, but this one is the longest. That’s because the first bullet point, “Expand Offshore Renewable Energy,” is the longest in the entire plan.
Warren calls for $2 trillion in clean energy spending, partly to finance a dramatic expansion of wind and water energy gathered offshore. She also wants to invest $400 million in research into emerging energy technologies. This, she says, will benefit more than just our carbon bottom line: “By 2030, offshore wind energy development from Maryland to Maine could support more than 36,000 full time jobs.” Finally, the polar vortex can be your literal as well as emotional boss.
Next, Warren proposes boosting the activist sector responsible for trying to rebuild fish populations in all of America’s ocean areas, which she says will bring hundreds of thousands of jobs and massive sales boosts for the many Americans who make their living in the fishing industry. Hewing to recommendations for sustainable fishing while working to restock the oceans will help ensure these people’s livelihoods in the long term, Warren says. She also wants to bring seafood markets back to America wherever possible, and not shipping fresh seafood from around the world will reduce energy costs. Finally, she wants to expand farming of algae and seaweed and ensure American ports are running on electricity instead of fossil fuels.
“Protecting and Restoring Ocean Habitat”
This section has the most bullet points overall, but the big ones are about ending offshore drilling and managing international waters. Warren proposes ending all new leases of public or offshore real estate to any fossil fuel industry, and she wants to end offshore drilling completely in the long term. She cites mounting loopholes that offer oil companies reduced costs in the same breath as the rolled back regulations that lead to safety problems and devastating oil spills. Her goal is to “transition” existing offshore oil infrastructure into offshore wind, including retraining or previously guaranteed pensions for oil workers.
International waters aren’t only a punchline in jokes about pirates or spur-of-the-moment marriages—they cover almost half of the Earth and, if left unattended to, are one of the biggest places where climate change will escalate and go unnoticed. Warren wants to boost U.S. cooperation in international groups that seek to regulate international waters by working together. She also wants to rewild the “high seas,” which she says are responsible for just 4 percent of fishing catch, but also a disproportionate amount of crime and trouble. She plans to rejoin the Paris Agreement and put American efforts into combating ocean acidification, which harms natural ecosystems and seafood farmers alike.
Warren also wants to protect and rebuild areas like Florida’s native mangrove forests, which have been steamrolled in favor of coastal building and artificial beaches. By shielding these areas and expanding overall protected areas of water, she says, we can have thriving oceans and lakes that offer a healthier and more sustainable profit source for locals who rely on them. Healthy water ecosystems also absorb a huge amount of carbon, and Warren wants to encourage this while reducing both garbage in the ocean and agricultural runoff.
“Adapting in a Changing Climate”
Here, Warren mentions Alaskan communities like Newtok, which have already been fully displaced by climate change. She cites that 40 percent of Americans live in coastal counties—everything from small fishing communities to Manhattan. She wants the government to stop building below 1.5 meters above sea level and invest in comprehensive disaster plans for any location likely to experience flooding and severe weather requiring evacuations. She wants to reform flood insurance, which encourages or even requires people to move back to flood-prone areas; and institute buybacks for homeowners who can’t sell their flood-prone homes but want to move to safer areas.
Warren wants to make better plans to address droughts now that regular and even severe droughts are a growing part of life for many Americans. With that comes wildfires, which Warren also wants to work to mitigate or even prevent when possible. And finally, she calls for investment in the Great Lakes, which are a unique feature of North America and a huge economic dynamo in the economies that surround them. The same pollutants that cause ocean algae blooms happen in the Great Lakes, with the same potential for fallout like dead zones where fish can’t survive. Unlike the oceans, the Great Lakes provide 10 percent of Americans with drinking water, so protecting them is vital, too.
It's Not Too Late
As in her previous and just-as-detailed climate plans, Warren is pragmatic, not gusty. These are hard tasks and she knows it. In the plan’s closing paragraphs, she exhorts all Americans to get ready to do the work that will help us have cleaner oceans in the 2020s.
“The task before us is significant,” she says, “but I am confident that America is up to the challenge—both at home and around the world—to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.”
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