Bernie is the frontrunner. And it’s climate policy that’s got him there

Hi,

Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is now the frontrunner for the Democratic party nomination to become the next US president.

For activists, campaigners, and people on the front lines of the climate emergency, it’s hard to overstate how big of a deal this is.

A series of successively more impressive victories in the first three contests of the 2020 US election have given Sanders a roughly 50/50 chance of winning the nomination. Read FiveThirtyEight’s summary of the current odds of Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic party nomination. According to the analysis site FiveThirtyEight, he has overtaken his three main competitors: he’s now five times more likely to win than Joe Biden, 10 times more likely than Michael Bloomberg, and over 65 times more likely than Elizabeth Warren. It’s no coincidence that Sanders has the best climate policies of any of the other candidates. Read my analysis of why Bernie Sanders’s climate plan is the best of any of the US presidential candidates.

As Sanders has gained steam, pundits are increasingly worried about his “magical thinking” Watch a clip from CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sanders’s climate plan. on climate, or that his plans are “unrealistic” and could make him unelectable in the general election against Donald Trump. But there’s nothing realistic about continuing with the status quo of using fossil fuels. Voters are beginning to see that the most realistic path forward is radical change.

The truth is, a huge part of Sanders’s popularity is because of his strong climate plans. Sanders won in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada on the back of his Green New Deal, an unrivalled set of climate policies that would reduce US emissions more than 70% in the next 10 years. Pre-election polling See a summary of polling on the Green New Deal’s popularity by Data for Progress. showed that roughly 90% of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada support a Green New Deal, many more than support his signature Medicare for All plan. And climate change itself has become a much larger public concern; a majority of Americans of all political leanings now believe that it is the most important problem we face. See the polling data.

“This is the first time in American political history where climate change is not just a top-tier issue—it is the top-tier issue,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, a Yale University scientist who studies US American perceptions around the climate movement, in an interview with the Atlantic. Read the story in the Atlantic.

If you agree with this data, it’s easy to make the case that Sanders’s climate policy has done more than any other part of his campaign’s platform to make his frontrunner status a reality. US America is finally ready to have a president with climate change at the top of his or her agenda, and it looks like they’ve found their guy. Bernie Sanders has revolutionised US politics by listening to the scientists and those most affected by the climate crisis.

At a rally last fall in Queens, New York, Sanders addressed the crowd Watch a 30-second clip of Sanders’ speech in New York City. with a question that goes to the heart of this moment of climate emergency: “Are you willing to fight for someone you don’t know as much as you are willing to fight for yourself?”

That message of solidarity will define this decade, Read my preview of the decade of the 2020s, in a world where we take bold climate action. if we let it. And, from the looks of it, there’s a pretty good chance that Bernie Sanders will be a key figure in making it happen.

Would you like to receive my newsletter in your inbox? Follow my weekly newsletter for an insight into the work, thoughts and ideas that go into being a Climate correspondent. Sign up here!