'We may not ever have a chance again': Advocates urge Congress to address climate change with budget bill

On a week where heat records were broken by extreme temperatures, a group gathered to push legislators to pass a budget bill that addresses climate change.

A group including state Rep. Andrea Dalessandro, D-Sahuarita, gathered at the Arizona Capitol on Friday morning to urge Congress to take "swift action" to address climate change and pass a $3.5 trillion budget package that they said would play a key role in doing so. 

Attendees specifically called on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., to vote in favor of a $3.5 trillion budget plan that would include provisions to address climate change.

A budget blueprint approved by the House in August included a goal of generating all of the country's electricity without increasing carbon dioxide emissions by 2035. 

A letter from the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans set to be delivered to Congress on Sunday, which marks Grandparents Day, supported the plan's tax credits for clean energy, new clean energy standards, investments to make electric vehicles more affordable and support for small businesses to become more energy efficient, among other measures. 

Sinema told The Arizona Republic in July that she does not support the budget's cost. Similarly, Kelly has not committed support to the measure's price tag.

Dalessandro on Friday said Sinema, whom she has known and worked with for more than a decade, "knows how important it is that we have bold federal budget investments to clean energy to tackle the severe climate crisis in Arizona."

She also urged Kelly to support the measures, adding that he has a "unique" perspective on the state of the planet "both on the ground around the state of Arizona and from outer space."

Dalessandro said she was not aware how much of the $3.5 trillion package would be invested in Arizona. 

'I want to see these changes for my grandchildren'

Dora Vasquez, executive director of the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans, said grandparents "will not sit quietly" as the threat of climate change grows through the generations.

"Had Congress made these investments over the past 20 years, we would have been able to do so gradually, but because government failed to act we no longer have that luxury," she said. 

Vasquez, who has seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, said passing the budget would not only help address factors contributing to climate change but also boost job growth in technology and renewable energy.

Though it comes with a big price tag, Vasquez said Congress has to understand how vital and urgent the need for action on climate change is.

"We may not ever have a chance again and I want to see these changes for my grandchildren," she said.

Katherine Cohen, 17, said her generation is "incredibly concerned about the climate that we are going to inherit."

Cohen, who is the community organizing director for the Arizona Youth Climate Coalition, said she has been encouraged to take actions including recycling and taking shorter showers, "as though the world burning down around me was my fault and responsibility to fix."

"The only fix is a collective and massively scaled action from the top down, the type only a government can undertake," she said. "While individual actions are critical, we need the government to address climate change at scale."

Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, said that while COVID-19 is the public health crisis of the moment, climate change is a public health crisis that spans generations.

"It is only solvable if we have the United States government leading the world and showing that we care," he said. "If you've got the captain of the team that doesn't care, if we don't pass this reconciliation and include clean energy in it ... the rest of the world's going to look at this and shrug their shoulders."

Humble noted the disproportionate impact climate issues have on communities of color, adding that both financial investments as well as policy changes are necessary in order to create a better climate future.

He said the group gathered on Friday was confident that Kelly and Sinema would support the measures, which he said will have implications for decades.

"In the next two months we will be setting the stage for what happens to the rest of the world in the next 30 years," he said.

Reach the reporter at bfrank@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8529. Follow her on Twitter @brieannafrank. 

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