NextGen Climate calls on candidates to aspire to 50% clean energy economy by 2030

Admittedly it’s early on, but there’s been little discussion about the environment from the candidates in this  presidential campaign.

Tom Steyer wants to change that.

Steyer heads the San Francisco-based NextGen Climate environmental group, whose political action committee spent tens of millions of dollars against Republican candidates last year who opposed efforts to combat climate change, including Rick Scott. In a big Republican year, however, much of that effort enjoyed limited success.

They’re not going away, though. The group is now calling on all candidates and elected officials to commit to a clean energy economy, and says those in power should aim by 2030 to have 50 percent of all U.S. energy sources come from alternative sources such as wind, solar, and move away from coal and natural gas, which together comprise 66 percent of the country’s energy portfolio. Nuclear represents another 20 percent.

NextGen Climate writes in a white paper, “The fossil fuel industry and utility companies have a strong interest in maintaining the status quo. But while they want the American public to believe that their antiquated, polluting technologies are required to power our country, the shift to clean energy is already under way.”

The group says that during the past five years, wind projects accounted for 31 percent of new generating capacity added in the United States. And in 2014, solar accounted for 32 percent of new American generating capacity, and is the single largest source of new capacity through the first two quarters of 2015. That’s in large part because the price has gone down dramatically for solar.

In the coming weeks, NextGen Climate will engage the public on the need for strong leadership that will accelerate our transition to a clean energy economy. They say that a recent NextGen Climate poll found that 69 percent of voters in eight battleground states responded favorably to powering America with more than 50 percent clean energy by 2030 and a completely clean energy economy by 2050; only 8 percent responded unfavorably.