Terry H. Schwadron
April 17, 2024
As impossible as it may be to television pundits that we can turn away from the “historic” first criminal trial of an ex-president on charges of falsifying and obscuring campaign financial documents, there still is an election looming with a lot of issues that have nothing to do with Donald Trump’s legal challenges.
In its own way, the hyper-attention on the trappings and political imagery of the trial are making it more difficult to focus on its substance. Fox commentators were prejudging the trial charges and evidence as irrelevant to “political prosecution,” while MSNBC hosts were underscoring the efforts to make prosecution witnesses as credible as possible.
Meanwhile, the issues that separate Donald Trump and Joe Biden that include directions on taxes and economics, attitudes on immigration and education, and the nature of our democracy itself.
Among the sharpest areas for difference are the outlook for the shelf of proposals that either recognize climate change as existential or dismiss it entirely as hoax and an excuse for American weakness. Whatever your feelings about either candidate, they both make clear that only Biden thinks international cooperation on forestalling the worst effects of global warming is important.
A recent analysis from Carbon Brief, a UK-based website covering developments in climate science and energy policy, concludes that a Trump victory will create policy changes that could increase planet-heating pollution in the United States by so much that the emissions would negate the last five years of global progress on deploying clean energy — twice over.
For me, the climate issue raises questions not only about the fate of the physical globe but about the ability of the candidates to deal with realities from science and the environment.
Detailing the Difference
By 2030, the analysis says, Trump rollbacks could add four billion tons of American emissions as compared with Biden plans — or the equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries.
Trump or Biden might dispute some of the calculations, just as they do the financial impact of differing tax proposals, for example, but mostly the two would disagree only about how to assess whether these conclusions are significant.
Trump makes no bones about arguing that from Day 1, he would boost oil and gas drilling and halt all efforts to promote electric vehicles over gas-fueled cars, or to stop efforts to move away from gas appliances, or to boost solar, thermal, and alternative energy sources to fossil fuels. He decries wind- and solar-energy projects. He repeats his opposition at every rally and underscores it in social media posts and campaign literature.
For Trump, caring about global warming fails because it slows immediate economic growth and because it leaves the United States subject to international cooperation rules rather than as the globe’s dominant voice. He disbelieves climate scientists and labels human-caused climate change a hoax.
Biden, who boasts that the United States already has surpassed every other nation as a current energy exporter, sees a need for transitional changes in manufacture, housing and transportation policies and the role of government in building out robust alternative energy industries. Biden has been active in promoting rule changes to accelerate electric car manufacture and more reliance on electric appliances over gas-fueled alternatives. Biden legislation has boosted clean energy jobs and new factories.
Biden has supported wind- and solar-energy development, often with willing investment by big energy corporations.
Trump sees the same legislation as “the biggest tax hike in history,” and Republicans in Congress have proposed rolling back key portions.
Focus on Emissions
Much of the focus of the Carbon Brief analysis explores how second Trump presidency could alter the course of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
Biden set goals for U.S. emissions to fall by at least half from levels measured in 2005 by 2030, a commitment that will require more government actions. Simply put, Trump would roll back those commitments, and emissions would be reduced by far less. Biden’s plans are on track to cut 2005 emission levels by 43% by decade’s end.
The analysis pinned the difference at about four billion tons by 2030. That is enough to doom 1.5°C increase in global temperatures set under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the study found. The work is based on modeling scenarios from various research groups that were said to include many but perhaps not all of Trump’s published ideas about rolling back Biden policies. The analysis does not include the effects of additional fossil fuel production that Trump might favor, as compared with a second Biden term, or new Biden policies that might be implemented during a second term.
Clearly, another important factor is which party controls Congress, as well as the effects of continuing global war and uncertainty.
It’s unclear that difference over climate will be a significant determinant for voters in November. But there is a split in outlook that is worth knowing.
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TerryHSchwadron 