Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emphasized need to ‘transform our energy system’ but did not discuss how to pursue it

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A star-studded progressive town hall on climate change drew thousands of viewers online and hundreds in person – but offered little insight into how the US left might overcome Republican opposition and lay the groundwork to limit rising temperatures.

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The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, and Democratic socialist congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned on a “Green New Deal”, elicited cheers with promises of an economic boom from massive investment in renewable power.

“What we are trying to do tonight is be part of the revolution in terms of the need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and to not only save the planet but create millions of good-paying jobs in the process,” Sanders said.

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Ocasio-Cortez said the climate movement was “going to be the Great Society, the moonshot, the civil rights movement of our generation”.

Speaking at the US Capitol, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez blamed corporations for taking advantage of people and oil and gas companies for ravaging the environment. Ocasio-Cortez said the media should cover the poor more.

Van Jones, a cable news commentator, and Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental group 350.org, sat in on panel discussions. One young activist rapped about the environment. A woman in the audience draped herself in a monarch butterfly cape.

“It is clear that it is the young people who are at the forefront of the movement,” Sanders said.

Some of the young people came looking for specific solutions to push lawmakers to support. Two Texas college students majoring in political science said before the event began that they showed up to hear more about Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal.

In the event, neither lawmaker discussed details or how to pursue them when Donald Trump has denied manmade climate change, planned to exit an international climate pact and slashed environmental protections.

Speakers framed the conversation around work that could begin in 2020, if Democrats take back the Senate and the White House. But scientists say the world must have plans in place soon to avoid the worst of a heating Earth.

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Democratic leaders – even those who will soon be in charge in the House – do not have a strategy to ratchet down climate pollution. Ocasio-Cortez participated in a sit-in at the office of the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, to urge her to come up with a plan. Pelosi has said she will pursue restarting a select committee on climate change.

“It’s kind of a philosophical kind of goal approach. It’s not necessarily a specific policy,” said James Jackson, a student at the University of Texas in Tyler who wanted to learn about Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal.

“I want to see what specific policies can make the elements of the Green New Deal come into fruition. We can say let’s have a jobs guarantee for green jobs but where are those green jobs going to be, who’s paying for them. I want to find those practical ways to enact the Green New Deal policies.”