CONCORD, N.H. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Several candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in 2020 attended the NH Youth Climate and Clean Energy Town Hall in Concord Wednesday morning, including Iowa frontrunner and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg took questions from students, and got a warm reception when he told them he would overturn many of President Donald Trump's executive orders viewed as dangerous to the environment.
"The rollbacks of protections on water, protections on air, protections on land that have happened in this administration ... my hand will be very sore from reversing a lot of executive orders on day one," Buttigieg said to applause.
Buttigieg at the NH Youth Climate and Clean Energy Town Hall in Concord Wednesday morning. (Getty Images)
But he said there's an underlining economic framework needed to save the environment, and touted carbon tax.
"The true costs are not reflected in the costs that come to the market," he said. "We have to change that, and that's why we need to introduce a carbon pricing dividend."
If progress is to be made, Buttigieg said, corporations would have to be reined in.
"Let's recognize that corporations will do as much as the system lets them, to maximize shareholder value," Buttigieg said. "So, what are the left and right boundaries that we the people create through our democratic process? What we're seeing right now is that those boundaries haven't been set in a way that's sustainable."
Buttigieg said fighting climate change could be good for U.S. status abroad, as well as for unity at home.
"At a moment when U.S. credibility is hanging by a thread, here's an opportunity for us to be leading the world on doing something about something the world knows is very important," Buttigieg said. "In other words, if there was such a thing as global climate diplomacy being practiced by the United States, that would be good for our credibility, but it is also the kind of thing we could unite on as a country, as we go out into the international field, and it would have appeal across partisan divides right here at home."
WBZ NewsRadio's Madison Rogers (@_madisonrogers) reports
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