Cory Booker's $3 trillion climate plan is focused on communities of color

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is turning his firsthand experiences into an ambitious environmental endeavor.

The 2020 candidate released his plan to fight climate change and promote "environmental justice" on Tuesday, following a handful of other Democratic contenders who've done the same. It includes a $3 trillion investment toward creating a 100 percent clean energy economy, the creation of an environmental justice fund, and other proposals clearly drawn from Booker's time living in and leading Newark, New Jersey.

Booker's plan begins with a "sweeping investment to advance environmental justice" called the U.S. Environmental Justice Fund. Its $50 billion annual allotment will go toward tackling lead-tainted water lines like those currently plaguing Newark, cleaning up abandoned toxic mines and Superfund sites, and planting trees in cities, among other things. All of these actions will benefit "low-income communities, indigenous communities, rural communities, and communities of color," which "bear the disproportionate burden of environmental neglect, pollution, and exploitation," Booker's plan says.

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Beyond environmental justice, Booker also pledged to create a clean-energy economy by 2045, quickly phase out fossil fuels, implement natural climate solutions, and lead a global movement toward reducing emissions. While Booker's plan is ambitious, neither he nor any other Democrat has matched the $16.3 trillion proposition from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Sanders' plan does touch on how climate change disproportionately harms marginalized communities, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro's plan released Tuesday makes it a focus.