White House hopeful Andrew Yang is set to release a television ad Wednesday across the crucial early caucus state of Iowa with a focus on climate change.
The ad, the result of a buy of roughly $500,000, highlights recent environmental disasters to underscore the need to fight climate change.
“Iowa has suffered devastating floods and tornadoes. Other states, scorching wildfires and super hurricanes. Our climate is in crisis. I’m Andrew Yang. The time to act was decades ago. As president, I won’t wait,” Yang says in the ad.
“Big polluters like the oil and gas industry get billions in tax breaks and subsidies. I’ll end the corporate handouts and crack down on those causing climate change. I approve this message because I’m the only candidate who supports a constitutional climate amendment to protect our future.”
The Yang campaign told The Hill the ad will air on broadcast stations across the Hawkeye State on a week by week basis.
Yang, an entrepreneur who for years worked in Silicon Valley, unveiled a climate plan in August that, among other things, would create a “fully green economy” by 2049 and support a constitutional amendment that seeks to fight climate change by creating “a duty on the federal and state governments to be stewards for the environment.”
Climate change has emerged as a defining issue of the 2020 primary race, with a dwindling crowd of contenders unveiling plans they say would propel the country to an economy free from reliance on fossil fuels.
Yang has enjoyed an unexpected staying power in the 2020 race, outlasting senators and governors who entered the race with higher name recognition than the outsider entrepreneur and have since withdrawn. He has earned a spot to appear at every primary debate so far and Tuesday qualified for the debate next week.