Ocasio-Cortez says O’Rourke’s new climate plan not aggressive enough

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke’s new climate plan isn’t aggressive enough.

O’Rourke’s plan, which he released Monday, calls for getting to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal calls for doing so by 2030.

“Personally, I think we need to have more aggressive timelines than that to be honest,” she told The Hill.

{mosads}“I think that the science and the IPCC [report] shows exactly what we need, and our legislation needs to be in line with that,” she added, referring to the climate assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Ocasio-Cortez is not alone in calling for a faster timeline to combat climate change.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a fellow 2020 Democratic candidate, argued that O’Rourke didn’t do enough to fight climate change while in Congress, and The Sunrise Movement, a youth climate organization that backs the Green New Deal, said the former Texas congressman should stick to the 2030 timeline required by the resolution.

O’Rourke’s team offered the same statement when his plan was previously criticized: “This historic $5 trillion investment is not only the world’s largest ever climate change investment in infrastructure, innovation, and our communities but it is also in line with the 2050 emissions goal of the Green New Deal,” a spokesman said by email.

Climate change is increasingly becoming a top issue for Democratic voters, and a trio of environmental groups also announced Monday that they are hoping to raise $1 million for the future Democratic nominee through a “Beat Trump Presidential Climate Unity Fund.”

Ocasio-Cortez said Republicans have put themselves in a difficult political situation when it comes to dealing with climate change.

“Climate [change] is now a politically strong issue around which we can galvanize a lot of pressure,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “After introducing the Green New Deal we’ve made climate a top electoral priority across the country, and so Republicans are now in a very difficult political position where after decades of being the party of climate denial, it’s no longer a politically acceptable position for them to do nothing.”