At Wednesday night’s climate crisis town hall with the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, a nurse from Brooklyn asked former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro what his administration would do to address environmental racism.
Castro reminded the audience that his first campaign stop was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Maria two years ago. “Too often, it’s people who are poor, communities of color, who take the brunt of storms that are getting more frequent and more powerful. So my plan actually calls for new civil rights legislation to be able to address environmental injustice,” Castro told the crowd, to a burst of applause.
Nearly all of the 10 candidates at the event vowed to reduce the United States’ carbon emissions, rejoin the Paris Agreement, and spur economic growth through investments in clean energy. On the whole, the plans are a repudiation of the Trump administration’s aggressively pro-industry, anti-environmental regulation policies, and an embrace of the Green New Deal, which has been championed by U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
