Joseph R. Biden on Monday slammed President Trump’s views on climate change, calling the Republican a “climate arsonist” and warning the wildfires raging in the West are a bigger threat to the nation’s suburbs than immigration.
Mr. Biden, the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, said the threat of climate change “requires action, not scapegoating” and a president to “defend us from every attack seen and unseen — always without exception.”
“Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused these fires, and record floods, and record hurricanes, but if he gets a second term these hellish events will become more common, more devastating, and more deadly,” Mr. Biden said in Wilmington, Del.
The former vice president said it is “ridiculous” for Mr. Trump to insist that “immigration is threatening our suburbs.”
“You know what’s actually threatening our suburbs?” he said. “Wildfires are burning the suburbs in the West. Floods are wiping out suburban neighborhoods in the Midwest. Hurricanes are imperiling suburban life along our coasts.”
Mr. Biden said that the more neighborhoods, homes and suburbs will be burned and flooded out if Mr. Trump wins another term in office.
“You give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze?” he said. “If you give a climate denier four more years in the white house, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is underwater?”
Mr. Biden said he will “respect science” and said he understands it is long past time to combat climate change.
Mr. Biden said that he will invest money into new environment-friendly infrastructure and provide rebates for electric vehicles.
He said the federal government will buy more electric vehicles, creating more jobs, and that he will put the nation on a path to having a carbon-pollution free electricity sector by 2035.
