• Green Party Presidential Nomination Convention, Aug. 15-18 online

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• Media Kit

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders challenged the perception of vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz as a leader in the climate crisis and said Gov. Walz's place on the Democratic ticket signaled that a Harris administration was likely to continue President Biden's foot-dragging and capitulations to the fossil-fuel industry.

For immediate release
Friday, August 9, 2024

Contacts:
Gloria Mattera, Green Party Media Committee Coordinator, 202-804-2758, [email protected]
Scott McLarty, Green Party Media Director, 202-878-2112, [email protected]

Greens continued to stress the urgent need for the Green Party's Green New Deal, noting recent news of deepening global climate instability such as the heatwave in Canada's Arctic region, devastating hurricanes, and warnings from scientists of a possible catastrophic collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

The climate emergency will be one of the top issues addressed at the Green Party's 2024 Presidential Nominating Convention, August 15 through 18.

Greens noted that the Walz administration in Minnesota approved a state permit for the controversial tar sands crude oil Line 3 Pipeline in 2020, after Walz had campaigned against it in his 2017 run for governor.

A coalition of 16 environmental groups recently criticized Walz‘s lax enforcement of environmental regulations, reliance on voluntary compliance by farmers on nitrate pollution limits instead of legal enforcement, failure to adequately police air quality violations from a foundry in a low-income environmental justice neighborhood, and a flawed permitting process for a crude oil pipeline built through wetlands.

Since 2010 the Green Party has advocated for a ten-year timeline to zero carbon emissions with a strong economic bill of rights. Climate legislation adopted in Minnesota only calls for zero carbon emissions from electricity by 2040, even though the building and transportation sectors are the two largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

“The UN Secretary-General has repeatedly warned that the world is out of time to avoid catastrophic climate change, as global warming and extreme weather continue to accelerate faster than anticipated,” said Rachel Braaten, co-chair of the Green’s EcoAction Committee and candidate for Mayor in Crystal Minnesota.

"Our prior Green Party presidential candidates had pledged to declare a climate emergency on Day One of their administration and issue a series of executive orders to mobilize the resources of the nation to achieve a clean energy transition," said Braaten.

The Green Party’s Ecosocialist Green New Deal calls for public ownership and control of the energy system and much of the economy. It supports Making Polluters Pay for the damage they have caused, starting with a robust carbon fee and dividend, as well as decarbonizing and re-localizing the food system, including regenerative agriculture and a more plant-based diet.

The plan also includes guaranteed living-wage jobs and income, single payer universal health care, affordable housing, and free public college education, along with a Just Transition to protect workers and communities presently dependent upon and impacted by fossil fuels.

"The Green New Deal is a full employment program. It also recognizes that to solve the climate crisis we have to jettison the private tyrannies of capitalism in favor of a democratic ecosocialist economic system based on the common good and sustainability," said Howie Hawkins, the Green Party’s 2020 presidential candidate who launched the Green New Deal in the United States in 2010.

Greens said that Democrats have continued to promote false climate solutions such as carbon capture and sequestration, nuclear power, biomass, and garbage incineration. Democrats have largely enacted an All-of-the-Above Energy strategy, refusing to halt new fossil fuels or rapidly phase out existing uses while the US remains the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world.

The Green Party faulted the Democrats for failing to deliver on environmental justice (EJ), with pollution sources still primarily located in low-income communities of color and funding for EJ programs falling far short of what they promised.

Greens also warned that Republican nominee Trump continues to deny the reality of climate change, noting that Trump has publicly asked fossil-fuel companies to give him one billion dollars to return him to the White House. Trump has called climate change a hoax. As president, he weakened or repealed over 125 environmental policies.

Green Party of the United States
https://www.gp.org
202-804-2758