VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson On Stopping Climate Change

Marianne Williamson, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and self-help guru, tells uPolitics that her priority in tackling global warming is recognizing its severity and what long-term consequences it will have on the Earth and the human race.

“We need to do more than mitigate the effects of climate change. We need to recognize it as the existential threat to the species that it actually is,” said Williamson. “We need to do more than stop climate change, we need to reverse climate change.”

The author of A Return to Love added she believes leadership changes are necessary at the highest levels of the Environmental Protection Agency, which thus far under President Donald Trump has continually rolled back many progressive policies and regulations concerning emissions standards and other targets established under former President Barack Obama. In January, Trump nominated former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to lead the EPA and David Bernhardt to head the Department of the Interior. Both have moved significantly towards scaling back Obama-era regulations.

WATCH: MARIANNE WILLIAMSON ON REFORMING IMMIGRATION

“The EPA should be a magnet for world-class environmentalists, sustainability experts and so forth,” Williamson said. “Fossil fuel companies, chemical companies, all those who have obstructed this process have been wrong. They are wrong, they are out.”

The 67-year-old added the human race merely has 12 years to reverse the effects of climate change or risk causing “irreparable harm” to the planet. Williamson also listed a series of sub-topics within the broader issue of environmental reform that need to be addressed, including the need to develop renewable forms of energy.

“We need to sequester the carbon, we need the reforestation processes, we need to develop sustainable energies and transportation and we need to deal with animal factory farming as well,” she said. “Otherwise, with the nitrous oxide and the methane we’ll still be in trouble no matter what we do.”

WATCH: MARIANNE WILLIAMSON ON REFORMING HEALTHCARE

Data from the Energy Information Administration published in January reveals that under Trump, not only did greenhouse gas emissions stop declining in 2018, they actually increased by 2.8%. Precisely because of data like this, many progressive politicians have proposed introducing a carbon tax and called for significant reductions in oil and gas production across the country. Some have also backed long-term initiatives like the Green New Deal.

Williamson recently failed to qualify for the third-round 2020 Democratic debate on September 12 after reaching at least 2 percent support in only one of four required polls, despite successfully attaining the minimum 130,000 donors needed.

Stay tuned for more videos from uPolitics’ exclusive interview series with 2020 presidential candidates.