President Donald Trump will travel to California on Monday to be briefed on its devastating wildfires, while Democratic rival Joe Biden plans a speech on the matter from Delaware, bringing climate change to the forefront of the presidential campaign.
Trump, a Republican who pulled the United States out of the Paris accord on global warming because he found it too costly, has voiced his view that poor forest management is partly to blame for the fires raging on the West Coast.
Democrats have emphasized that climate change has played a role, and Biden is expected to emphasize this in his comments.
Trump will travel to McClellan Park, California, to meet with local and federal officials for a briefing on the fires.
“The President continues to support those fighting wildfires in a locally executed, state-run and federally supported emergency response,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement Saturday.
Biden has included climate change on his list of the top crises facing the United States, along with the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 194,000 people and pushed the country into an economic recession.
“Vice President Biden will discuss the threat extreme weather events pose to Americans everywhere, how they are caused by and underscore the urgent need to address the climate crisis, and why we need to create well-paying union jobs to build more resilient infrastructure, ”his campaign said in a statement Sunday.
A series of deadly and destructive wildfires struck California, Oregon and Washington this summer, destroying thousands of homes and a handful of small towns, burning more than 4 million acres and killing more than two dozen people since the beginning of August.
Fighting climate change is a key issue and motivator for youth and progressive-leaning voters that Biden needs to vote in the November 3 election.
It’s a more complicated issue for some Republicans, who, despite clear scientific evidence for its existence, question the data and the need for comprehensive and costly measures to combat it.
.
