Biden and Trump set to deliver starkly different messages on wildfires

Democrat to stress climate change and pitch green investment
Trump to speak at event for California national guard
US politics – live coverage

Emily Holden in Washington

Mon 14 Sep 2020 10.28 EDTLast modified on Mon 14 Sep 2020 14.13 EDT

Shares128

Joe Biden has pledged to recommit the US to climate efforts, potentially encouraging deeper action from the rest of the world. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Record-setting wildfires in the western US forced their way into the presidential campaign on Monday, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden scheduled to make competing remarks.

Social media disinformation on US west coast blazes ‘spreading faster than fire’

The historic fires in California, Oregon and Washington have killed at least 35, forced tens of thousands to evacuate and subjected millions to some of the worst air pollution in the world – yet the subject has been slow to penetrate mainstream politics, amid the Covid-19 pandemic and a national reckoning on racial injustice.

In a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday afternoon, Biden will emphasize the wildfires’ connection to human-made climate change and pitch his plan to invest in green infrastructure, in order to create jobs and stimulate an economic recovery from the pandemic.

Trump, who has denied climate change exists and downplayed its impact, will attend a briefing on the wildfires in California, then deliver remarks in a ceremony recognizing the California national guard.

Their responses illustrate the importance of the November election in determining the trajectory of global climate action.

If Biden wins, the US will recommit to climate efforts, potentially encouraging deeper action from the rest of the world. The scale and speed of Biden’s response would depend largely on congressional politics and could be hampered by his hesitancy to call for a rapid end to the use of fossil fuels, but he has vowed that climate will be a top priority.

If Trump wins, he will continue to cheerlead fossil fuels, stripping environmental standards and helping the industry compete with clean energy.

Julien Emile-Geay, an associate professor of earth sciences at the University of Southern California, said: “Voters will soon have to choose between an administration invested into denying objective information – including, but not limited to, all the science it finds inconvenient – and a Democratic ticket that, for all its faults, at least acknowledges this reality.

“This is what political choice has turned to in 2020: a