Factbox: On climate, it's Biden's green revolution versus Trump's war on
red tape
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[September 12, 2020]
By Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S.
presidential election pits a politician who plans to tie the country's
economic recovery to tackling climate change against another determined
to remove as many regulatory hurdles to oil, gas and coal production as
possible.
President Donald Trump, a Republican, has focused on dismantling former
President Barack Obama's climate agenda to free the energy and auto
industries from the costs of regulations meant to protect health and the
environment.
Joe Biden, a Democrat who served as Obama's vice president, has beefed
up his strategy to tackle climate change with a focus on a new massive
green infrastructure to re-invigorate the U.S. economy that is reeling
from the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.
As deadly wildfires tear through all three states on the West Coast and
remind Americans of climate change's risks, here are some of the major
issues at play in the Nov. 3 election.
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CLIMATE PLANS
Biden, heeding calls from his party's progressives for a faster
transition away from fossil fuels, has proposed $2 trillion in spending
over his first four-year term and aims to achieve 100% clean electricity
by 2035.
Biden's proposals include upgrading 4 million buildings for energy
efficiency, building 1.5 million energy-efficient homes and public
housing, and investing in public transportation in cities with over
100,000 residents.
Power utilities have pointed out that his plan depends on rapid advances
in nascent technologies.
Biden supports research on high-tech nuclear energy that would be
virtually emissions free but likely still have waste issues.
Trump does not have a climate plan on his campaign website. Instead, the
site highlights his administration's focus on unraveling Obama-era
regulations. This includes the Clean Power Plan, which he replaced with
a weaker standard called the Affordable Clean Energy rule to cut
pollution without damaging the coal industry.
Trump has rejected mainstream science on climate. But he said in
September while announcing a decision to ban drilling off the coast of
Florida that Republican lawmakers told him he could be "the number one
environmental President since Teddy Roosevelt."
Like Biden, he supports advanced nuclear technology.
AUTO EMISSIONS
Biden wants to strengthen auto emission standards set during the Obama
administration. Trump, who had called the regulations "industry
killing," replaced the standards with weaker ones in March.
Biden has also proposed incentives for auto manufacturers to produce
zero-emission cars, a federal procurement program for clean vehicles and
set a goal for all new American-built buses to be zero-emissions by
2030. He has also called for the installation of 500,000 electric
vehicle charging stations by 2030 and ending fossil fuel subsidies.
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![](../images/091220pics/news_v39.jpg)
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Joe Biden waves to supporters
as he arrives at the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO headquarters on Labor Day
in Harrisburg, PA, U.S., September 7, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File
Photo
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
BLUE COLLAR WORKERS
Trump had a vision of a renaissance in "beautiful clean coal," the
fuel that emits the most carbon dioxide when burned, and invited
miners to the White House in early 2017 as his administration
announced plans to slash air and water regulations.
But due to abundant natural gas and falling prices for wind and
solar power, Trump has failed to stop coal plant shutdowns during
his term in office. Coal-fired electricity output fell 18% last year
to the lowest level since 1975.
Trump is also focused on protecting the drilling and other fossil
fuel industries, a major source of blue collar jobs.
Biden has resisted a push by his party's liberal wing to impose a
nationwide ban on fracking. The drilling technique increases
emissions of gases linked to climate change but supports jobs across
the country and has allowed the United States to become the world's
top oil-and-gas producer. Biden also supports investing in coal
communities by offering alternatives to mining work.
CLIMATE DIPLOMACY
Trump put in motion a process to remove the United States, the
world's No. 2 emitter of greenhouse gases behind China, from the
2015 Paris Climate Agreement that brought countries together to
mitigate global warming, saying it was too costly. Andrew Wheeler,
the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, says the
Democratic-led climate change fight hurts the poor.
Biden has said he will return the United States to a leadership role
on climate change, assertively restoring a U.S. role in future
climate negotiations to advance the goals of the Paris Climate
Agreement.
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He has said he brought China's President Xi Jinping on board with
the Paris pact, a claim some former Obama administration officials
have said was overstated. Biden wants to make a diplomatic push to
persuade China to stop financing coal plants through its
belt-and-road initiative.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Valerie Volcovici and Trevor
Hunnicutt; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Richard Valdmanis and Dan
Grebler)
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