Dear future Democratic candidate, we need so much more than the Paris Agreement.

While a few of the current Democratic hopefuls have put forward aggressive climate policy plans, some candidates, including the frontrunner, seemingly don’t get it. The Paris Agreement is a nice symbol of solidarity and was a means to bring together international experts to strategize about solving our climate crisis at a global level. But let’s be clear, the Paris Agreement is non-binding, i.e. entirely voluntary and nationally determined, and has many faults including emissions reductions pledges that from the start did not add up to enough, as well as a weak timeline and many appeasements to destructive corporate practices and the military industrial complex. Still, this sort of agreement is necessary. However, I worry that people take it for more than what it is - a global diplomatic agreement, conceptual in nature. The Paris Agreement isn’t a fix-all and re-entry is meaningless without aggressive policy. We need to go so much deeper, and in fact, smaller to local, state, and national-level legally binding targets. My point is that when a politician states that re-entering the Paris Agreement is their climate policy, we should be weary. Of course, if the US elects a new president in 2020 (fingers crossed!), this should happen on Day 1 to make clear to the world that this is a priority. However, on Day 2, 3, 4, and so on, we need aggressive ‘Green New Deal’ type policies that legally ensure emissions reductions and penalize those acting against everyone’s best interest of addressing climate change. We also must elect politicians at every level who are willing to make these changes - climate policy, like most successful policy, is about snowballing.