What Conservatives and Climate Hawks Learned From the CNN Town Hall

Who stood out at the CNN Climate Crisis Town Hall? How did conservatives react? Did general voters even care? Democratic presidential candidates covered a lot of ground over the course of the seven-hour climate policy telethon — from fracking bans to a new CarbonStar program, coal worker retraining programs to a major environmental justice fund. While there was widespread consensus on the need for climate action, some key differences also emerged between the contenders. We discuss the top takeaways from town hall, as well as the latest candidate climate plans, in this week’s episode of Political Climate. To understand how the Democratic platforms resonated on the right, we’re joined by Charles Hernick, director of policy and advocacy at Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a non-profit organization founded to engage Republican policymakers and the public on conservative solutions to meeting the nation’s energy needs while preserving the environment. Emma Foehringer Merchant, staff writer for Greentech Media, also joins the show to explain what’s new and novel in the latest release of candidate climate proposals.  Recommended reading: GTM: Climate Town Hall Exposes Key Differences Among Democratic Front-Runners NYT: 5 Takeaways From the Democrats’ Climate Town Hall AP/US News: Democrats Step on Shaky Political Ground With Fracking Bans GTM: Coal Miners Doubt Promises of an Inclusive Energy Transition National Clean Energy Week Political Climate is produced in partnership with the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, and thanks to invaluable support from producer Victoria Simon. Subscribe to the Political Climate podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Overcast or any of these other services.