In a world as dynamic as ours, we are in a time of political and environmental change. Recently, Joe Biden was elected President. He is set to be the 46th President of the United States on January 20th, 2021. How will his environmental policies differ from Trump's? Where do each of them stand on environmental issues? What will they do to stop climate change? Biden seeks to push the US on a path towards net-zero emissions by the year 2050, while Trump focused on balancing environmental protection with economic growth during his presidency.
Biden's environmental policies
To combat climate change, Biden will aim for the US to have net-zero emissions by the year 2050, and create millions of jobs in the process. He seeks to modernize American infrastructure and invest in clean energy. Specifically, he has said that he will get rid of carbon pollution in the power sector by 2035. He also plans on securing environmental justice, saying that he will allocate 40% of his clean energy investments to communities of color and low-income communities, which are disproportionately affected by pollution. His plan holds corporations responsible for polluting lower-income neighborhoods, whose pollution has made residents of those neighborhoods more susceptible to COVID-19. Furthermore, he plans on re-entering the Paris Agreement. As a moderate Democrat, he does not support the Green New Deal, however, his plan was heavily influenced by it. Both plans are very ambitious and seek to bring emissions to net-zero.
Trump's environmental policies:
During his presidency, Trump was more focused on economic growth than environmental protection. Furthermore, he said that his two priorities were clean air and water as well as to bolster the oil and gas economy. These two objectives are contradictory, because in order to make the air clean, Americans must cut down on emissions. He reversed many of Obama's environmental policies. Furthermore, he called climate change "nonexistent", "mythical", and "a hoax", despite the scientific consensus that climate change is real. On June 1, 2017, he made a statement withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement because it placed too many burdens on the US economy.
The rollback of Obama's environmental policies has allowed more pollution to disproportionately infiltrate low-income communities and communities of color, which can have long-lasting health effects. CO2 levels first hit 400 ppm in 2016, the year Trump was elected. An analysis from September 2020 by the Rhodium Group says that if Trump's rollbacks continued, an staggering 1.8 BILLION more metric tons of greenhouse gases would be in the atmosphere by the year 2035! In conclusion, during his presidency, Trump has prioritized the economy at the expense of the environment.
Biden can restore many of Obama's climate policies that Trump rolled back, but the damage done by the Trump Administration to the environment is too drastic to reverse. Biden has thought of an elaborate, ambitious, though expensive, plan to combat climate change and bring the US down to net-zero emissions by the year 2050, while Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement and rolled back many of Obama's environmental policies because he prioritized the economy over the environment. We have much to look forward to during the Biden presidency, especially the legislation and efforts made to stop climate change.
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