Clinton's big vision is to "transform our carbon-based economy into an efficient green economy, creating at least 5 million jobs from clean energy over the next decade." It's not clear how she arrives at 5 million from her plan. She proposes a "green collar" jobs training program that would provide the people most in need of work with green job skills. Her green building fund would create more than 100,000 new "green collar" jobs and her plan to weatherize 20 million low-income also contains promises of good, new jobs.

Clinton supports an 80 percent pollution reduction in greenhouses from 1990 levels by 2050. She endorses a cap-and-trade approach to help us get there that would auction off 100 percent of the greenhouse gas permits (not give them away for free) and invest the proceeds in tax benefits for working and middle class families and in incentives for energy efficiency and renewable technologies.

To date, she’s cosponsored the aggressive Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, but she came on board late in the game, some three months after it was introduced. And she tells Grist that she’s going to push for whatever’s politically viable. She also cosponsored the less aggressive McCain-Lieberman climate bill of 2007, which would would cut carbon emissions so that by 2050, we're at one third of 2000 levels. She has yet to take a position on the Lieberman-Warner bill, which proposes a cap-and-trade plan that would auction off about 25 percent of pollution credits from the outstart and give the rest away for free, though the auction would grow over time.

Clinton's plan is big on energy efficiency in the building sector. She has proposed that all federal buildings designed after January 20, 2009, must be zero emissions buildings. She also has a plan to create a "Green Building Fund" that would give $1 billion a year to states to improve the energy efficiency of their public buildings.

Clinton wants companies to obtain 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. But it’s her Strategic Energy Fund that’s the cornerstone of her renewable energy platform. It would eliminate current tax breaks on oil companies and for two years charge a fee on profits that exceed a profit baseline from between 2000 and 2004. Oil companies could mitigate this fee by investing in alternative energy technologies. She says the fund would generate $50 billion for cleaner energy.

Clinton has pledged to lead the US to leadership on Kyoto's successor treaty. She wants a deal in place by 2010, two years ahead of Kyoto's expiration. The new treaty will force mandatory emissions for the US and the other participating nations. As she explains in her Foreign Affairs piece, China won't get serious about binding emissions until we do. She also said that she will set up an annual "E8" summit modelled after the G8 process that would include the US, Canada, Mexico, the EU, China, Russia, Japan, India, South Africa, Brazil. The E8 would not be a substitute for the UN process, but rather "would serve as a catalyst for the larger effort" and would "streamline negotiations among the major emitters."

Clinton has become the leader in the pack on this issue. She's proposed increasing fuel economy standards to 40 mpg by 2020 and 55 mpg by 2030. That's a 100 percent increase over the 27.5 mpg we're at today, and have been for over 20 years. Her plan estimates a savings of $180 billion for Americans on this measure alone. She'll also authorize $20 billion in low-interest "Green Vehicle Bonds" to help give automakers a lift in the retooling and will invest in research for improved plug-in hybrids.

Clinton's energy proposal would pump immediate funding into building ten large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) plants at a time when government research has revealed that CCS is too risky an investment, and even morally irresponsible. On liquid coal, her once-stated position was that she’s for it if it reduces carbon pollution by 20 percent. And in June she joined Obama and voted for an amendment to Jon Tester’s energy bill (Montana-D) that would have provided $200 million in grants and $10 billion in taxpayer loans for projects to turn coal into liquid.