tonight on kqed newsroom, the new republican battle cry. and a new u.n. report warns of the devastating effects of climate change can be felt in detwo ades. and san francisco's homeless epidemic. a local ceo supports a measure aimed at reducingho elessness. we begin with an emboldened gop and a surge in women candidates. at a gathering in iowa this week president trump made it clear he will use the recent supreme court confirmation fight as ang rallcry.

the president cited opposition to justi brett kavanaugh sayingmotoats have become too dangerous and tre. most polls show democrats will likely pick up seats in the house. an unprecedented number of women ar running for office nationwide and that trend holds true for california, as well. here now to discuss all of this are political senior writer, gop political consultant tim miller and government reporterkatie orr. nice to have you back. tim, how much of it did thenf mation of brett kavanaugh give republicans? >> i think it was real. the intensity level on the left going into the hearings was already an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 on the right, it was mid. i think that the intensity of the dispute, the perceived i

think grievance, the way the media and some of the democrats in the senate handled the appointment has absolutely fied up th republican base. i think what that has done also is it dove tails with what usually happens ih the last mo the mid term election. maybe they for a little while pretend like they are going to vote for the other side. the heat of the campaign people naturove home. i think those things have given the republicans a little bita boost. >> i'm wondering if the high that the republicans got from the confirmation will be able to sustain itself in the election. i know the anger factor having been out there on the campaign trail seems pretty high on the democrats' side. we had a poll that showed most americans were not in favor of the confirmation i think it was 47-40. and demrats are showing an advantage when it comes to the generic congressional polls, almost ten percent at this point. it looks like the democrahe are

hopingcan sustain. >> trump can turn this on to him. that's happened to the voters and t media. you look at the 2016 election, the access hollywood tape happened three weeks out. it was only three weeks later that he was able to recover because of comey. there is still a lot of time left for that kavanaugh effect to wear off. >> the president is seeng to turn tables for democrats. at a rall in iowa he stood out and accused them of the same things theyevelled against them which is basically saying they were practicing the politics of anger, division and dodestruction. ou think that is gaining enough traction to slow down momentum of so democrats in. >> at that same rally there were chantsof lock her up in regards

to dianne feinsteinn her role in the kavanaugh confirmation. certainly there are movoters ou there that are angry. i think you can't underestimate the anger on the other side particularly among women. i cannot tell you how many women i know just from my own personal life who were saeyng that t were surprised just by the emotions that that hearing brought up for them. i have people who said they are eat going to watch it because they just can't with it. and i think a lot of women are taking th anger and are determined to show their voice at the polls. as w haveeen seeing since the presidential election, actually -- >> trump has tried to cast this in a way as kind of a me, too versus white men and says it is a scary moment for white men. i think it is an issue he has brouet up in s of the rallies i think by referring to some of the women'srops as

mo mobs. that will only serve to energize nor women voters. i have seen it o there. that is going to be a critical vote. >> some democrats are saying they want to turn up the heat. we had former attorney general eric holder saying in rerence to tepublicans when they go low we kick them. hillary clinton said you n't be civil with the current republican party. it seems that they are now taking a page from president trump's play bookgetting a lot more aggressive. will that play out well? voters are saying they are already getting tired ofthis back and forth, this nastiness. at someatoint some cand is going to be smarter, i think, to off some other kind of agenda here that has less to do with eating each other up and more to do with actual policy when it comes to issues like health cahee.

this is number one issue for people out there right now. they are not talking about me too. they are not talking about russia. they are really interested in health care and housing issues, economic issues, those are still the big ones. >> i think karlago raises a point. some of the congressional races that i have been orcovering, instance, california courts district north of sacramento, republican being chased by jessica morris. that race is still likely his. she has a big hill to climb. i just monitored ae deb the issues there are local. how are we goingo manage our forest? those are the issues i think that voters at the end of the day really care about because that is wh mostly effects their lives. >> are you seeing that across

the board? i know you h been doing a series of reports on the record number of women running for office this year. in california, how many are running for congress? >> in california there are-- i'm not sure exactly how many. i think the number totals there bout 400 women that had ran for congress. i think about 200 something made it past the primaries. that's nationally. and thatdoes not include like legislature and then like water board, school board. >> there is common themes to why they are runninis and whates they are running on? >> i think there are a lot of women who are running because of 2016. when you look at it it largely is a democratic women's story. they are fired up and they want to sort of take back the country as they see it. but then when you talk to them, again, a lot of the themes they are going on are really local.

>> i talk to so many women who say the 2016 election is the first time they got involved. many of those women who are involved in house races inif southern calnia were energized by -- >> college educated women's story, it bremains to seen whether the energy exists in the blue collar districts that flipped for trump and whether lt the same cral effects are happening there. >> there are some gop women running for the first time, as well. we have kim and diane in orange county. have they been able to galvinize the same way democratic wom have been able to do? >> the energy is certainly not on theepublican side. i do think women candidates in rimaries did well because

republican voters don't like this sort of conversation saying we are sexist. to they wantrove that they are not. >> i want to look ahead to the c sus. this week we had a report come out on the census 2020 and the public policy institute of california und that california is very vulnerable to an under count. we could miss and we could lose a seatre in cons in the house. al could lose out on billions of dollars in fed funding. >> i have seen some reporting that suggests that in the trump administration there were actual conversations about putting a q citizenshestion into the census perhaps for theeffort. >> it is an important issue to them. it seems like a niche thing.

>> and what happens when you put a citizenship question in is a lot of undocumented immigrants don't want to answer the door and won't be counted. if you are not countedhen california perhaps could lose, they suggest, an congress seat and a lot of services and funding. there is a lot at stake with this question. that's why california is fighting it. >> let's say democrats win the house in november, how does that affect the ability? >> i thnk th would be one of nancypelosi's things. the democrats here in california havebs made itutely clear. this is a priority for them to get the question.f >> tunately, the democrats are going to be able to bring the trump administraon officials for review because they are not going to get much past. >> thank you all.

>> thank yo. moving on to the environment. devldstating fires, droughts and more severe hurricanes are a few examples of severe weather events linked to climate change. a new united natins report finds things are much worse than previously thought and wahes t mostsevere effects could be felt as early as 2040. for many of us, that is during our lifetime. the carbon emissions would need to be slashed 25% by 2030. meeting this goal would require a global commitment to phase out coal and replace it with renewable energy. joining me now is uc berkeley professor. first i wanted to ask you about the awful destruction caused by hurricane michael on the east coast. how much has climate change contribed to its furosity?

>> it is still unleashing its damage, but the first scientific papers were already in on hu aicane floren few weeks ago on the carolinas. that storm was 50% warmer, 50% more damaging because of climate change and because of the extra heat in the ocean that we are seeing. 50% has caused a great deal of the surges, the damages. we can expect similar results from michael. >> let's a taut the u.n. report, as well. it is kind of connected. it is very comprehensive, the new report involving 91 ientists all over the world who analyze more than 6,000 scientific studies and looked at studies that you have.is what your take on their findings? >> if anything, i would say they have been conservative because they need to be. the ipcc which shared the nobel peace prize, they only work from published paper. some of the papers from my group and others were utilized asim

imput. with the rapid effects happening day by day some of the more recent results are more scary. they have been conservative by design. they paint a very bleae. pict the chances of wildfires, sustained droughts, hu impacts on food production go up dramatically for every degree. to aim for 1.5 would avoid billions if not trillions of dollars of damage. >> it has to d with the prediction that if the atmosphere warms up by 2.7 degrees fahrenheit we will start experiencing the devastating effects that you just mentioned. how close are we to hitting that mark? >> sadly, we are already close. we already warmed by 1.5 degrees fahrenheit. we have very little head room

left. with this report it really highlights how much easier we'll make our jobs if we can keep it under this 1.5 degree celsius target, not going towo degrees celsius. >> this report lays out a number of srategies to reduce greenhouse gas emison emissions they want to see it go from 40%. how realistic is the goal gtven t it is also very cheap with countries like china and india? >> coal is no longer the cheapest option. this is something that heads of state are coming to grips with. two days ago the head of the world bank had a major announcement announcing the world bank would no longer fund

coal because renewables are cheaper. i would like them to go further and say we will get rid of coal for other reasons. it meant coal plants being planned china and other countries such as kenya, coal plants scheduled for pakistan, thl all no longer receive world bank funding which makes it mu harder to launch them. this is really designed to be the first wave of forts to get coal out entirely. that seven percent was an upper limit. two percent is the goal w that want to see it hit by 2050. we are really looking at zero coal. >> what about carbonx ? california has a carbon pricing program. how many other places have been asked to look at grants? >> we need to go a lot farther. the good news is that a california'son program is going strong. the big new entrant is china. china is launching its carbon

price after several years of experimenting city by city and province by province. we find they effective but are only effective if we spread them and they reallye bec part of the global economy. >> how is it working in china? m howch are they charging? >> china is just entering it right now. by the end of this year they will have launched a larger version. their carbon price would be higher tha the california price. california is $12 a ton. china is aim gre like $20 or more a ton. under president obama t u.s. e.p.a. has said the social cost of carbo should be more like $30 to $40 a ton. >>this u.n. report says heavy taxes on carbon dioxide emissions would beed need to help idavo catastrophe. is that politically feasible? >> $27,000 is notsi fee.

what it was highlighting is that if your tnlyol is a carbon price it might need to be not $50 or$100 a ton, but several hundred. places like california and europe have a number of other mechanisms. in california we have requirements for clean electricity and buildings. we don't express it. what it is saying is if you want take away all the other rules you would need to price that high. so wha they are saying is the other way around. what they are saying is a ixture of a reasonable carbon price and the carbon price that we give some back tor p people, plus all of these targes, that is a strategy that would get us on pace to meet this target. what it kind of gets some conservatives are proposing which is the idea that you tax carbon emissions and then you give some of that money from the taxes back to the american public.

is that a good idea? >> i think this is a great idea. actually, formerst secretary of e james baker on the republican side has been a key author of the idea is exactly that, that eru give back part of the taxes particularly to l income americans and that really pushes a tax on pllution across the economy. and we use some of the moneys to invest in cleangyen >> in exchange some conservatives want the obama-era environmental regulations to be rolled back. is this a baitand switch, perhaps? >> so the politics is exactly bait and switch. if the republican plan was to make it revenue neutral by letting other taxes get reducedm for ee capital gains taxes or employment taxes and keeping eonironmental regula then we have a strategy like california where we have regulations that protect us and we start to crank up the tax because we kno ultimately we need to be subsidizing clean

energy and penalizing dirty ergy. the republican politics are not as good as just the element of the plan itself. >> always a pleasure to have you on and give us this great explainer. >> thank you for having me. we turn now to san francisco's homeless crisis. its esday sales force and ceo announced they would donate about $2 million to support a controversial ballot measure to help the homeless. san francisco mayor is opposing the measure saying it doesn't contain any accountability for how the moneyis spent. joining me now are politics and governm reporter guy and molly turner, an urban innovation lecturer. lelcome to you both. so many peowho live and work

in san francisco and many people who visit feel that homelessness is oneig of thest problems in san francisco. what kinds of taxes would this impose on big businesses? >> this is a tax on money companies bringing in over $50 million. this is on the biggest companies in the city, a few hundred companies. it's raising their gross received tax. it is really directed towards addressing the homelessness situation in san francisco, about half towards housing, rental subsidies and building housing and the other half towards more immediate things, s shel mental health treatment. i think you are seeing acknowledgment that these companies have done incredibly well. we all agree homelessness is pro ibly the top issthe city. it is time to look at the companies as a place to find a solution. you mention mark comiout in support of this. he put it as a binary choice.

homelessnewith the you are with proposition c. >> despite the fact that it would put lot of money into the city's coffers, you have mayor opposing it and some state lawmakers opposing it. why are they not backing this measure? >> they argue it is not binarye andre we invest in double the amount of money the city ism spending onessness we should look at how the current money is bei spent. they want to figure out an process to figure out where the money is going. there is also the politics of it. i think if proposition c passes voters will judge the results on mayor and how her administration is able to spend the money. from the perspective, she wasn't crafting the measure. she will be accountable for whether this --

>> therefore she is not invested in it. what iso take on prop c? would this money ma a big difference? >> it would almost double the budget that the city currently sas tond on homeless services. it would have a significant impact. and the city economist recently issued asa reportng as much. he also said that it might have a small but significant impact on jobs and on the city'sgdp estimating about 0.1% of jobs in the city could be lost from this by big businesses deciding to move outside of san francisco because of the increased tax rate. but it's really hard to know what the impact of reducing our homelessness crisis on the streets would be o the city. in we have already seen, for example, that some conventions e pulling out of the cit fig citing the homelessness crisis as the reason. >> does the city even have a

good hale on how the money that it is currently spending is being spent? because san francisco's homeless population has pretty much stayed the same despite hundreds of millions of dollars poured into it. has hovered around 7,000 or so every year. >> throh the budgeting process the city has allocated funding to the recently frmed department of homelessness in support of housing over the past several years so the city has a good sese of how much it is spending. i believe the mayor is retorring the newly installed system which is a databasehat essentially tracks how each individual is being funneled through the system of services and how much money is being spent oal each indivi once the system is up and running the city can have a much better sense on how much is eing spent on what kind of services and for what demographic. >> we can agree it is an ongoing struggle. we can fure out who is

homeless by sending volunteers to do a point in time, not really a 21st century approach. the real issue isan you track from when you find someone is homeless to tracking how the serviceey are getting and how the services are doing. >> and other communities are doing a good job of that. i kn you did a comprehensive report on h san francisco bay area planning and research association where you looked at homelessness in the entire region. are there communities that are showing some success in how they tackle this problem i? >> certainly, in the south bay they created this system which le c a coordinated entry system which san francisco e called the system to better track their spending on homeless services. already that is showing some results in helping them measure the iacts of their spending. further south in the state, los angeles passed a measure last year increasing theun athat

the city and county funds homeless services. there is a lot of hope that that will result in extreme reduction in >> and guy, san francisco isn't th wonly city obviouslh housing and homelessness issues. you have covered, also, other measures on the november ballot specifically mountain view ands palo alto. they had their own measures to tax big companies, as well. is there a growing movement to hold companie accountable for the economic inequities that we are seeing? >> i think there absolutely is. i think these measures are evidence of that. l when youk at the trend of how cities have gotten money for things like housing and transportation, it used to be the federal government would be putng money. corporations last year got a huge corporate tax dection from 35% to 21%. the corporations are getting back i think with the cities in

mountain view it is measure p and trying to direct money towards transportation and east palo alto they are looking at the companies and saying you have done very well with the federal government, with tax reform. it is time to spend some of that money locally. >> w't some of the cities, if they are saying that, don't they risken aing companies that are already in the city or discouraging new companies from coming in? >> sure. the city economist report found that there is a riskat companies will pick up and leave the city of san francisco in search of lower tax rates. i would say that san francisco anathe state offornia have historically had very high tax rates compared to the rest of the country. that doesn't seem to have deterred businesses from moving here and forming here. the cost doing business in san francisco is extremely high. tues aside, the cost of living and transportation for its employees is very high. and so i questioned the extent to which increased taxes will

impact location decisions for wusinesses. ll leave it there. thanks to you and that will do it for us. as always, you can findof more our coverage at /n kqed.osroom. thank you for joining us.

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