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California wildfires: Donald Trump questions climate crisis, Joe Biden calls him ‘climate arsonist’
As US President Donald Trump visited California, one of 10 states where wildfires have burnt down nearly 5 million acres of land and killed dozens of people, local officials argued climate change should be accepted as having played a role in the fires
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As Donald Trump on Monday toured parts of California that have been ravaged by wildfires and then reiterated his scepticism of climate change, Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger for the White House race, slammed the US president, calling him a “climate arsonist”.
Trump visited California, one of 10 states where wildfires have burnt down nearly 5 million acres of land, killed dozens of people and displaced millions, after weeks of criticism of his indifference towards the crisis and after blaming it on negligent forest management practices.
Local officials of Democrat-ruled California accepted the importance of forest management during their interactions with the US president, but argued that climate change should be accepted as having played a role in the devastating West Coast fires.
“It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch,” the American president said dismissively after a short presentation by a California official who argued that climate change should be recognised as the real cause of the fires.
The state official then told the US president, “I wish science agreed with you,” to which Trump responded, saying, “I don’t think science knows, actually.”
The exchange of words went viral on social media as yet another instance of climate crisis denial by the US president. Trump had been downplaying the climate crisis right from his pre-presidency days, when he had claimed that climate change was a hoax fanned by China to slow down the growth of industrialised countries.
Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris Accord, claiming it had given India and China a sweeter deal, and has decidedly rolled back all clean air and water orders issued by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
“Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused these fires, record floods and record hurricanes,” former vice-president Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, tying the catastrophic natural events to the climate crisis. “But if he gets a second term, these hellish events will become more common, more devastating and more deadly.”
Bided added, “If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze?”
The Democratic presidential candidate promised to take the US back to the Paris Accord that Obama as president had brokered with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, leaders of the world’s top polluters after America.
“While he (Trump) turns us against our allies, I will bring us back into the Paris Agreement, Biden said. “I will put us back in the business of leading the world on climate change. And I will challenge everyone to up the ante on their climate commitments.”
