In his brief, yet memorable run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, Michael Bloomberg did his darndest to be the climate change candidate. His record spoke for itself: He pioneered some of the most impressive local-level climate policies in the world as mayor of New York; he served in multiple U.N. posts focused on climate change; and he has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to initiatives, programs and organizations dedicated to reducing carbon use and developing clean-energy solutions.
Always a stickler for pragmatism, in the Trump era, Bloomberg turned his climate philanthropy and diplomacy away from the Republican-controlled federal government and focused where he could get results: locally and internationally.
Bloomberg funds and serves as board president at C40 Cities, a network of major municipalities around the world committed to taking serious action on climate change. Through his foundation, he started the American Cities Climate Challenge, awarding assistance and resources to 25 cities in the U.S. to reach the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, an objective he has also pursued by organizing America’s Pledge, which brings together American states, cities and businesses trying to reduce carbon use. In his most expensive and successful venture, Bloomberg has gone after coal plants and natural gas, donating $500 million to launch Sierra Club’s Beyond Carbon campaign.
Despite this impressive resume, when Bloomberg announced his climate plans during his presidential run, the environmental world responded with a collective shrug.
The environmental movement’s imagination had been captured a little more than a year earlier by the idea of a Green New Deal, with activists dreaming of electric-powered trains, high-paying clean-energy jobs, and a country where access to food, shelter, water and clean air would be fundamental rights. Opposed in one way or another by much of the Democratic Party’s top brass, including Bloomberg, the Green New Deal nevertheless became another litmus test for many on the left during Democratic primaries.
Despite losing in embarrassing fashion in 2020, Bloomberg still came out on top. With former Vice President Joe Biden winning the Democratic nomination and the presidency, Bloomberg will soon have a clear ally in the White House—one whose views aren’t too far left, but who still wants to take action on climate change and the former Mayor’s other pet issues. Even before the election, climate was already rising as an area of possible consensus between the Democratic establishment and the junior coalition members to their left, with Biden’s campaign proposing a plan to spend $2 trillion over four years on green-ing the country. The Washington Post called the plan “surprisingly ambitious,” and the Sunrise Movement—which had previously given Biden an “F” grade on his climate policies—recognized the plan as a serious attempt to bridge the divide with young environmental activists.
But other battle lines are still being drawn. Biden’s campaign plan is not set in stone, and congressional negotiations and horse trading could lead to a final piece of legislation considerably less comprehensive—and that's if the Democrats are able to win control of the Senate.
Moreover, for many climate activists and left-wing lawmakers, a couple trillion in tax incentives and green energy initiatives is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s necessary to stop an environmental catastrophe. A Green New Deal that addresses environmental racism and jobs programs for soon-to-be-unemployed fossil-fuel industry workers is still the left’s gold standard, but the wealthiest and most powerful climate activist in the world has called the idea “pie in the sky.”
This is not to say that Bloomberg will outright oppose more radical climate action (his opposition is largely premised on the plan being “unpassable”), but the former mayor’s pragmatism will likely stop him from using his bully pulpit and massive cash reserves to fight for what many climate activists think is a necessity. Bloomberg’s political style, like his business and philanthropic style, is driven by data and measurable results, as Tate Williams at Inside Philanthropy has observed in his time covering Bloomberg’s climate work.
Moreover, Bloomberg is of the belief that moderation is what wins in politics, not populism or catering to ideologues. The Green New Deal is not just radical for climate policy, but also redistributes wealth. While he ran ads promising to tax the rich if elected president, Bloomberg was also highly critical of senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders’s soak-the-rich tax plans, which he compared to Venezuela’s system. Bloomberg also remains a billionaire, and would likely be the target of massive taxation under such a plan.
In the Biden administration, Bloomberg (or at the very least, many people who have taken his money at one point or another) will certainly have a voice on climate policy, and probably an outsized one compared to the Sunrise Movement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or others with more radical climate ideas. He will certainly continue to push for global partnerships and bold action at the local level, but it’s hard to say how much involvement Bloomberg will seek in hammering out federal legislation. Bloomberg is infamously controlling and will not have the same ability to bend things to his will in Congress or at the White House as he does in his philanthropy.
As for the Green New Deal’s future, any hope of ambitious climate action beyond that with which moderate Democratic lawmakers are already comfortable will take massive public pressure. While Data for Progress has found that bold climate policies are broadly popular with minimal blowback electorally (their research likely contributed to Biden’s adoption of a more far-reaching plan) it will take more than good polls to convince middle-of-the-road Democrats to get on board with the party’s left wing. A proper campaign to push legislatures to support the Green New Deal would need to buy ads, make phone calls and canvass homes at a massive scale to convince voters to demand more from their representatives. Someone with a lot of money and time on their hands might be able to make such a campaign happen.
But that someone will almost certainly not be Mike Bloomberg.
