{"id":10828,"date":"2020-09-30T22:20:22","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T05:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10828"},"modified":"2020-10-01T02:48:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T09:48:52","slug":"post2-106","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10828","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Tuesday\u2019s Debate: A Milestone in the History of Climate Politics&#8221;, Politico Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By<em>\u00a0<\/em>Michael Grunwald, Analysis|Sustainability, 09\/30\/20<\/p>\n<p><em>It was easy to miss amid the chaos, but something changed, even for Trump.<\/em><\/p>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story \">\n<div class=\"container container--story\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<section class=\"media-item media-item--story media-item--story-lead \">\n<div class=\"media-item__image\">\n<div class=\"media-item__image-wrapper\">\n<figure class=\"art \">\n<div class=\"fig-graphic\"><picture><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"A sunset lights up the sky outside the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University ahead of the first presidential debate between Republican candidate President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, in Cleveland.\" src=\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/dims4\/default\/3bb4617\/2147483647\/resize\/1160x%3E\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fff%2F2a%2F5171b8ee4f7982e03ff27b622086%2Fap20273847679888-773.jpg\" alt=\"A sunset lights up the sky outside the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University ahead of the first presidential debate between Republican candidate President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, in Cleveland.\" \/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story mobile-spacing\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"story-meta order-flipped\">\n<p class=\"story-meta__credit\">AP Photo\/Julio Cortez<\/p>\n<div class=\"story-meta__authors-timestamp has-social-tools has-social-tools--left\">\n<div class=\"story-meta__details\">\n<p class=\"story-meta__authors\"><i>Michael Grunwald is a senior staff writer for<\/i>\u00a0<span class=\"cms-magazineStyles-smallCaps\">Politico Magazine<\/span>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph story-text__drop-cap\">In Tuesday night\u2019s demolition derby of a debate, President Donald Trump did not even pretend to confront white supremacists. He didn\u2019t pretend to respect the legitimacy of the election, either. So it was telling that after moderator Chris Wallace asked him the first-ever question about climate change in a general election presidential debate, Trump did pretend to support electric vehicles.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\">\u201cI\u2019m all for electric cars,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve given big incentives to electric cars.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"story-enhancement\">\n<div id=\"pol-05-wrap\" class=\"content-group ad is-loaded\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\">In fact, Trump is not all for electric cars; he\u2019s mocked them, and his policies have penalized them. He certainly hasn\u2019t given big incentives to electric cars; he actually tried to eliminate the existing incentives. But while Trump\u2019s 90-minute tornado of unfiltered insults and right-wing red meat suggested that he\u2019s happy to run as an enemy of cities, the news media and racial sensitivity, he clearly would prefer not to be seen as an enemy of the climate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story hide-under-small\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story is-medium-width\">\n<div class=\"container container--story\"><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story main-section\" data-content-section=\"2\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"1-0\">Wallace\u2019s original question was whether Trump believes the scientific consensus about climate change in light of the fires burning in California; the president dodged it rather than repeat his recent assertions that the science can\u2019t be trusted and the earth is about to start cooling. When Wallace pressed him to clarify whether he accepted that greenhouse gases contribute to global warming, he grudgingly conceded: \u201cI think a lot of things do, but I think to an extent, yes.\u201d That made political sense, too, since the Yale survey found 72 percent of Americans believe global warming is happening, while only 12 percent don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story is-full-width-bleed\" data-ad-section=\"2\">\n<aside class=\"story-enhancement\">\n<div class=\"ad is-loaded\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story main-section\" data-content-section=\"7\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"1-0\">The survey found the public also agreed by a 61 percent to 29 percent margin that global warming will harm Americans, by a 56 to 44 margin that it\u2019s already harming Americans, and by a 60 to 11 margin that the president should do more to address it\u2014all of which helps explain why the president tried to tack toward the climate majority on the debate stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"1-1\">\u201cWe now have the lowest carbon,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIf you look at our numbers now, we are doing phenomenally.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"story-enhancement has-borders\" data-content-child-index=\"1-2\">\n<article class=\"media-item orient--horizontal-fixed-fluid parenthetical\">\n<div class=\"media-item__summary\"><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"1-3\">America\u2019s emissions are indeed lower in 2020, but that\u2019s because of the coronavirus lockdowns, not because of Trump\u2019s energy or environmental policies, which have had the consistent objectives of relaxing restrictions on polluting industries and promoting the mining and drilling of fossil fuels. Trump scrapped Obama\u2019s Clean Power Plan that would have regulated carbon emissions\u2014which, incidentally, had 75 to 24 support in the Yale poll\u2014as well as rules limiting mercury, soot and other pollution from coal-fired power plants. As Biden tried rather inarticulately to point out, Trump\u2019s administration has also ditched rules limiting methane emissions by oil and gas companies, accelerated permits for drilling, mining and logging on public lands, rolled back protections for wetlands, and made the United States the only nation to announce its withdrawal from the Paris climate accords.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"1-4\">Nevertheless, Trump tried to portray himself as a champion of clean air and water\u2014or, as he put it, \u201cimmaculate air, immaculate water\u201d\u2014another nod to the power of environmental issues, especially among the suburban women who have been such a problem for his reelection campaign. The only specific environmental policy Trump brought up, aside from his nonexistent electric vehicle incentives, was his support for a global initiative to plant a trillion trees, which he misidentified as the Billion Tree Project. \u201cIt\u2019s very exciting for a lot of people,\u201d he said, although he didn\u2019t really make it sound like he was one of those people.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"1-5\">Trump\u2019s message was that he\u2019s an environmentalist, but Biden is a radical environmentalist who would destroy the American economy with left-wing nonsense. Again, though, he had to resort to wild falsehoods to make that case. He attacked the Obama-Biden administration\u2019s Clean Power Plan for somehow \u201cdriving energy prices through the sky,\u201d even though it never went into effect. He accused Biden of wanting to spend $100 trillion on the climate, using a sketchy right-wing analysis of the \u201cGreen New Deal\u201d that Biden doesn\u2019t even support, and also of wanting to ban cows and air travel, another misleading reference to the Green New Deal, or at least to a list of talking points about the Green New Deal that Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s office released and then hastily retracted.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"1-5\">iscuss the substance of issues he sees as politically advantageous as well as globally consequential. When Wallace said he\u2019d like to discuss climate change, Biden blurted out: \u201cSo would I!\u201d He talked with a lot of passion, though not a lot of focus, about his role overseeing the Obama stimulus that helped bring down the cost of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources; about \u201cweatherization\u201d programs that could put unemployed Americans to work caulking windows and otherwise upgrading the energy efficiency of homes and businesses; and about his idea to pay the Brazilian government to crack down on the destruction of the carbon-rich Amazon. He also called for electrifying the federal government\u2019s fleet of vehicles and installing 500,000 charging stations on America\u2019s roads\u2014a solution for the Darling-where-do-I-get-a-charge problem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story main-section\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\">Wallace also challenged Biden about the fiscal and economic cost of his climate plan, which irritated many climate activists, but it\u2019s a legitimate question that led to one of Biden&#8217;s strongest moments in the chaotic debate. He argued not only that his $2 trillion plan will provide millions of jobs in green industries and green infrastructure projects, a common Democratic argument, but that the cost of inaction would be far greater, since America is already spending more than ever on climate-driven floods, hurricanes, fires and droughts.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re in real trouble,\u201d Biden said. \u201cLook what happened in the Midwest with these storms that come through and wipe out entire sections and counties in Iowa. They didn\u2019t happen before. They\u2019re because of global warming.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story is-medium-width\">\n<div class=\"container container--story\"><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story main-section\" data-content-section=\"11\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"2-0\">Back in 2012, CNN\u2019s Candy Crowley explained after a presidential debate that she considered including a question for \u201cyou climate change people\u201d but changed her mind because \u201cwe knew the economy was still the main thing.\u201d Eight years later, there\u2019s increasing recognition from politicians as well as media bigwigs that all people are climate change people, and that there\u2019s no way to isolate the economy from the energy that fuels and powers it or the climate disasters that increasingly threaten it. It\u2019s hard to imagine that there will ever be another year of presidential debates without a climate question, and the worse the problem gets, the more pressure candidates will face to embrace the science and call for action.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\" data-content-child-index=\"2-0\">That doesn\u2019t mean that every candidate will make climate warriors happy with every answer. Trump never did acknowledge that climate change is contributing to California\u2019s fires, arguing that the more pressing issue was bad forest management, which was a reasonable case to make. Biden made a point of distancing himself from the Green New Deal, prompting Trump, in a weird moment of off-message punditry, to declare: \u201cYou just lost the radical left.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story main-section\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\">But Biden isn\u2019t tailoring his message to the radical left. He\u2019s aiming for the 63 percent of Americans who are worried about climate change, the 86 percent who support research into renewable energy, the 56 percent who say it\u2019s important to their presidential vote. And while it\u2019s obvious from his rhetoric as well as his record that Trump doesn\u2019t truly care about the climate, it&#8217;s a reflection of the changing political climate that he felt the need to pretend he does.<\/p>\n<p class=\" story-text__paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2020\/09\/30\/debate-climate-politics-423896\">Politico Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Michael Grunwald, Analysis|Sustainability, 09\/30\/20 It was easy to miss amid the chaos, but something changed, even for Trump. AP Photo\/Julio Cortez Michael Grunwald is a senior staff writer for\u00a0Politico Magazine. In Tuesday night\u2019s demolition derby of a debate, President Donald Trump did not even pretend to confront white supremacists. He didn\u2019t pretend to respect the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10837,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions\/10837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}