One week after Election Day and days after Joe Biden was projected as the winner of the 2020 presidential election (As of Tuesday, President Trump still claimed he would win the election), the result of the election will reflect not only on the country's direction but also on the global environmental issues.
Acting to keep the worst scenarios from climate change has risen as a central issue for voters in the United States. To review and summarize the differences, we are diving into the plans and strategies of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
When surveyed, most Americans have expressed that climate change is the most pressing environmental issue, so it follows that actions to address it are significant.
Below we list down their stance by looking at both their records while in public office and publicly accessible issues platforms.
Climate Records
On Prioritizing Climate Action
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| Since assuming office, President Donald Trump has effectively reversed climate and environmental policies and guidelines established during previous President Obama's eight years in office and even previously. As per the New York Times, the Trump administration has accomplished rollbacks of 66 environmental regulations and is currently moving back 34 more. Past those, he's taken 29 significant actions that weaken climate activity and environmental protection in his first 875 days in office. | In 1986, Biden presented the Global Climate Protection Act, the first climate change bill in the Senate. Signed into law by President Reagan, the truly restricted bill guided the legislature to investigate and build up a technique to manage global warming. Afterward, as President Obama's Vice President, Biden was nominated to direct the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The law made new speculation vehicles for clean energy, and the Obama White House portrayed the $90 billion designated as "the single biggest investment in clean energy ever." |
On Climate Science
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
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In 2017, Trump canceled an Obama-era executive order requiring construction using federal funds to consider climate change and sea-level rise data. This notwithstanding a report from the GAO of climate costs as high as $23 billion by 2050. In mid-2017, the EPA started eliminating climate change data from US government sites, including the EPA site page that clarified climate change. At that point, the administration likewise stopped studying the health dangers to people living close to coal mines. Trump's administration has likewise legitimately focused on Federal climate researchers, reassigning EPA staff zeroing in on climate transformation in 2017. After a month, dismissing half of the individuals from its Board of Scientific Counselors reviews EPA scientific research. In 2018, the Trump administration unexpectedly disbanded a 20-member board of researchers accused of instructing the EPA on safe air pollution levels. This was foreshadowed by a similar move in 2017 when the administration dismissed a board charged with giving specialized help to states in actualizing the National Climate Assessment. Furthermore, in May 2019, the administration discreetly cut a NASA program that monitored greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, undermining the effective announcing of emissions from worldwide entertainers. |
For the most part, Biden's record on climate science originates from co-accomplishments with the Obama administration. These incorporate executing or beginning various projects and undertakings overturned, moved back, or focused by Trump. Among them include ARPA-E's creation, an organization that advances and finances research and development of advanced energy technologies. It also incorporates nominating supporters of climate science to head the EPA, subsidizing research of coal hazards, supporting scientific research at the EPA, and programs like NASA monitoring emissions. |
On Promoting, Building Renewable Energy
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| Right off the bat, parts of Trump's administration had upheld new Federal leases planned to be used for offshore wind farms. However, this excitement hasn't converted into renewed federal incentives for offshore wind, which sunsetted during the current administration, driving upwind turbine costs. Administrative help for offshore wind has additionally been lessened by false cases from President Trump himself that wind turbines "cause cancer" and other false statements by the administration. In 2018, Trump presented a tariff on all solar panels made abroad, intended to secure American manufacturing positions, estimated to cost 62,000 American jobs. |
As Vice President, Biden managed Obama's implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The law allotted over $90 billion through loans, loan guarantees, tax credits, and grants for growing better batteries and weatherizing homes. He has additionally been an advocate of clean energy for a long time as a US Senator. |
On Fossil Fuel Use
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| Trump has administered or guided efforts to advance fossil fuel use, particularly coal. He's chosen fossil fuel industry insiders and lobbyists for key government posts, including EPA Administrator, Interior Department Secretary, and Secretary of State. In 2017, the Trump administration approved construction licenses for the controversial expansion of the Keystone XL gas pipeline. In mid-2018, the administration declared a plan to create leases in 26 offshore zones, making up 90% of the country's outer continental shelf. Furthermore, in 2018, the administration greenlighted gas and oil drilling in government waters in the Arctic, giving licenses to specific organizations for drilling in the zone. |
Biden has taken the "No Fossil Fuel Money" campaign pledge that the entirety of the Democratic official up-and-comers took. In 2014, Biden led a $50 million aid bundle that included help for building up Ukraine's shale gas infrastructure for public security reasons when nations were consenting to limit carbon emissions. Additionally, under the Obama administration, which Biden was part of, national fossil fuel productions soared. |
On Carbon Pollution Pricing
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| He has pushed for what a few economists have portrayed as 'basically something contrary to a carbon cost' by proposing to finance carbon emissions instead of taxing them. This comes despite some in Trump's cabinet voicing favor of carbon pricing during his term. | While Vice President Biden publicly upheld the Waxxman-Markey carbon pricing bill passed in the US House, they eventually neglected to pick up Senate endorsement. He's additionally recently supported carbon pricing while a US Senator from Delaware for 36 years. |
On Global Climate Cooperation
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| Immediately after taking office in 2017, Trump announced his aim to pull back the US from the 2015 Paris climate accord, making America one of just three countries to decline the landmark international agreement. He's additionally denied participating in global emissions reductions talks generously and has refused to sign some global reports except if they are stripped of any references to climate change. | Biden has frequently promoted his effort to help settle on the Paris Agreement a reality. Even though professing to have carried China to the table, as per GQ, it's challenging to make sure since it's not, in fact, evident that Biden was included at all in the Paris Agreement, with specific reports guaranteeing that Biden was not included by any means, his public help for the settlement; Biden gave a few talks featuring US progress in battling climate change and calling for more forceful action on the international stage. |
Climate Platforms
Generally speaking, Biden and Trump contrast significantly in their climate platforms. For instance, Trump references "climate" or "climate change" only four times inside his website's issues section, which we're all talking about his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Contrast this with Biden's issues section, which references "climate" or "climate change" no less than 215 times.
The accompanying data was taken legitimately from donaldjtrump.com and joebiden.com, with specific references to pledges or promises made during the 2020 campaign.
On the Scope of Climate Action
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| President Trump's re-election campaign website does not contain any sections that promote action to stop climate change, decarbonize the economy, or advance renewable energy improvement over fossil fuels. Freely, Trump has been fervently contradicted to the idea of a Green New Deal and has promised to run his re-election campaign as a referendum against the reformist program. |
Biden's proposed $1.7 trillion climate plan involves 30 times the clean energy engagement in Hillary Clinton's 2016 platform. Despite this, it was at first portrayed as being lower in degree, size, and clearness when contrasted with the plans set forth by his rivals for the 2020 Democratic nomination. It ought to be noticed that in the wake of turning into the presumptive nominee in Spring 2020, Biden has found a way to reinforce his climate plan and signaled he would extend it in the coming months. Not long ago, Biden announced the expansion of Green New Deal is expected to noticeable situations on his climate team, including Green New Deal author and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement's Founder and Executive Director Varshini Prakash. Biden's "vision" section on his website contains 37 plans to accomplish different policy goals and objectives, 16 of those have subsections for how that particular plan identifies with climate change, and regularly incorporates extra actions Biden vows to perform to manage this. |
On Promoting, Building Renewable Energy
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| There is no reference for this on Trump’s website. | A large number of Biden's plans contain subsections for advancing clean energy use, including his "plan empowering unions and enabling laborers" and his "plan for infrastructure." Biden continuously references his hope to see a "clean energy transformation" and promises to get the US to 100% clean energy within his immediate climate plan by 2050. |
On Fossil Fuel Use
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| On the platform part of Trump's website, he references his triumph against the "battle on coal." He promotes his administration’s opening of the "largest oil and gas lease of more than 78 million acres of land in the Gulf of Mexico." There are additionally various references to his administration acting "forcefully to increase exports" of energy resources like oil and gas to the global market. |
Biden's platform includes strong language on the fossil fuel industry. It indicates that the Biden Administration will make a move against fossil fuel companies and other polluters who put benefit over individuals and intentionally hurt our environment and our community’s air, land, and water, or hide information concerning likely environmental and health dangers. It ought to be noticed that all through the campaign, Biden had opposed requiring a restriction on fracking, a controversial method for natural gas extraction. Biden's platform is consistent with his hesitance to absolutely ban fossil fuel use, making statements like "there is considerably more work to be done to recognize affordable solutions." |
On Carbon Pollution Pricing
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| There is no reference for this on Trump’s website. | During his campaign, Biden has stood up in favor of a carbon pricing policy. Biden has publicly preferred passing Federal carbon pricing legislation by 2025. Additionally, his plan incorporates supposed 'carbon tariffs,' which would be conceivable if the US likewise had its carbon price. Carbon tariffs work by setting a charge on imported merchandise from nations with a lower carbon price than the US, representing the price difference and permitting American products to stay competitive. |
On Environmental Justice
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| There is no reference for this on Trump’s website. | His climate plan contains numerous references to ‘environmental justice,' with the plan’s caption called "Joe's Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice." Within this current plan’s essential environmental justice section, Biden calls out the "unreasonable harm" of pollution on communities of color and low-income locals. |
On Global Climate Cooperation
TRUMP'S RECORD |
BIDEN'S RECORD |
| The sole reference on his website to global climate cooperation is his record of withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. | Under Biden's "restoring American leadership" plan, he includes a part detailing his objective to "rally the world to address the existential climate crisis." This incorporates rejoining the Paris Agreement, yet additionally consists of a promise to "lock-in enforceable responsibilities that will diminish emissions in global shipping and flight." Within his immediate climate plan, Biden likewise vows to "adopt the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, adding force to checking hydrofluorocarbons, a powerful ozone harming substance." |
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