Trump Flat-Out Ignores Question About Fighting Climate Change
Following the hottest summer on record, the very last question that ABC’s debate moderators presented to Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was: “what would you do to fight climate change?”
Harris slammed Trump for having called climate change a “hoax,” noting it’s “very real,” posing physical dangers to Americans, and costing them financially. She touted the Biden administration’s investments in renewable energy, as well as, on the other hand, record domestic gas production.
Trump, for his part, completely ignored the question. He spoke of auto manufacturing plants being built in China, and said he would put tariffs on some imported cars. Then, he claimed that “Biden doesn’t go after people because supposedly, China paid him millions of dollars.” The former president did not offer any plans to fight climate change.
When asked about the issue during the debate with President Joe Biden in June, Trump similarly refused to commit to doing anything about climate change. “During my four years, I had the best environmental numbers ever,” he claimed, despite catering to the fossil fuel industry throughout his time in office.
He will certainly do so in a prospective second term, as well. Trump reportedly asked oil CEOs for $1 billion in donations to his campaign in exchange for reversing many of Biden’s environmental regulations. He also promised to speed up oil company mergers.
During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Trump derided the Green New Deal, a proposal for policy addressing climate change. “They’ve spent trillions of dollars on things having to do with the Green New Scam. It’s a scam,” he said. (The Biden administration has not passed a Green New Deal.)
“President Trump is committed to unleashing American energy sources like coal, oil, and gas to ensure affordability for families and security in the world by making us a more self-sufficient nation,” Trump senior adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement this summer.
Trump has long downplayed climate change, telling Fox News in June that rising sea levels “means basically you have a little more beachfront property, okay?” He’s repeated the line often, despite the opposite being true.
Harris has said she will build on the Biden administration’s record, and has garnered support from environmental activists. One piece of Biden legislation she could build on is the Inflation Reduction Act, which the Environmental Protection Agency calls the “most significant climate legislation in U.S. history.” It offers funding and other incentives to encourage a transition to renewable energy.
As California’s attorney general, Harris helped bring criminal charges against a pipeline for an oil spill. She also started an investigation into ExxonMobil over whether they had lied about the risks of climate change. “She has been talking about the need to confront the climate crisis, to hold big oil accountable and touting her record as Attorney General,” Stevie O’Hanlon, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement, told NPR.
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