Climate at the Debate: Muddy Details, Clear Records

The presumptive presidential nominees exchanged barbs on climate change at Thursday’s debate. As with much of the debate, the details were hard to follow, but the candidates’ records are clear.

In the debate, former President Trump copied his oft-repeated line that he delivered clean air and water as president. “I want absolutely immaculate clean water and I want absolutely clean air — and we had it,” he said. 

President Biden criticized Trump for pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, the 2015 climate deal between nearly 200 countries, saying the U.S. is critical for any climate action globally. “How can we do anything the United States can get under control?” he said.

The truth about their records, however, is pretty clear. Trump spent four years undoing climate rules and pulling the U.S. back from international climate commitments. The CNN anchors posing questions to the candidates referred to climate change as a “crisis”; Trump has repeatedly declined to accept the science. Biden has put climate at the center of his administration, most significantly with the Inflation Reduction Act, a climate law that will subsidize clean technologies to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. His agencies have sought to put new regulations in place to guide the country to a cleaner energy future

A central point of contention in the brief, approximately five minutes, devoted to climate change, was the nature of the Paris Agreement. Trump claimed that it costs the U.S. trillions while countries like India and China had no responsibilities. Biden’s response came in fits and starts, but he suggested that the U.S. needed to be a part of the central piece of climate diplomacy.  The truth is that the Paris Agreement is non-binding, and that countries make voluntary commitments under it, meaning that it has no mandatory cost. 

Biden also alluded to his administration’s commitment to cut carbon emissions in half from 2005 levels by 2030. It remains far from a guarantee, but his administration’s positions have made that target possible. To get there, however, will require future presidential administrations to continue implementing the existing climate laws in good faith — not mention for those laws to stay on the books in the first place. 

Neither candidate really explained the climate stakes, but it only takes a little bit of climate knowledge to guess.