Andrew Yang in 2019 Town Hall

On Energy & Oil: Stop subsidizing fossil fuel industries; support carbon tax

YANG: The big picture is, we subsidize the fossil fuel industry to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. And so now everyone is, like, "where's the money?" We know where the money is. We put hundreds of billions into the fossil fuel industry. We're still subsidizing it to this day, and now it's time to take some of that money and channel it to the needs of the American people. We need to get with the program, wake up to the reality around us and let you know that you're not on your own. This is not a "you" problem, this is an "us" problem. And what do sophisticated, advanced societies do when it's an us problem? We put some of our collective resources to work and we solve the problems on the ground.

Q: Would you eliminate some subsidies for fossil fuel or subsidies?

YANG: I'd get rid of them all. Why would you leave any of them?

On Environment: Reformulate GDP to account for clean air & clean water

YANG: The first thing I would do is rejoin the Paris Accords. And then I would we redefine our economic bench marks actually to include environmental sustainability. Because right now, the trap that Democrats are in is that, we're being told that moving towards a green economy is bad for jobs, it's bad for business, and that couldn't be further from the truth. We actually need to redefine our economic measurements to include clean air and clean water and let America.

Q: How do you change that?

YANG: Well the great thing is we made up GPD almost 100 years ago, really. And even the inventor of GPD at the time said this is a terrible measurement for national well-being and we should never use it as that. Let's upgrade it with a new score card that includes our environmental sustainability, health and life expectancy. [Then we won't] fall into this false dichotomy that what's good for the planet is bad for the economy.

On Environment: Clean water is a fundamental human right

And this is, again, the problem with having the almighty dollar running our society, where people look up and say, "oh, replacing the pipes is expensive." Are you kidding me? You know what is expensive? Poisoning our kids.

On Government Reform: You get what you measure, so decide what to measure

So, working with businesses. First, a carbon fee is going to go a long way, because all of a sudden they have to pay when they pollute. So that's going to be immediate. And they will do the right thing by their own businesses.

But the second thing is, if we make economic impact part of our economic measurements, and then each company has to report on them, then you will see their behavior change very, very dramatically, because, in this country, you aim towards what you measure.

One of the big problems in America is, we are measuring the wrong things. Under my presidency, we will start measuring the right things. And businesses will be my willing partner in this.

On Homeland Security: Military dumps oil at end of year, to avoid losing budget

Now, why is he doing that? Because they have to use all the oil that's budgeted, or else they won't get the same amount budgeted the following year.

So this broke my heart to even hear this story. We have to take some of that $750 billion and start channeling it towards our infrastructure.

We know we need to make our infrastructure more sustainable over time. Right now, there are hundreds of billions being spent on our military that is generating a ton of emissions and pollution. And so if we take a significant portion of that budget and channel it towards infrastructure, we can make a good out of right now a huge net negative.

On Technology: Apply geoengineering fixes, but ALSO reduce carbon emissions

YANG: Geoengineering is not the primary approach at all; we have to reduce emissions first and foremost. And if you look at my plan, of the $5 trillion, like a fraction of one of the trillions is looking at geoengineering. We have to get the best of emissions as the primary driver of climate change. Geoengineering, I just want us to think a very, very big picture of what's happening. Imagine a country like China 25 years from now who is going to be bearing the brunt of climate change. They're not very consultative, so you can imagine them doing something that affects us and the rest of the world, spraying sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. So, we need to face facts about the scope of the challenge and lead globally. So, I would convene a geoengineering summit and get countries from around the world to make sure that we don't have rogue actors just going off on their own.