The Los Angeles Times reports that Al Gore endorsed Joe Biden today, the 50th observance of Earth Day.
Gore referred to Trump as the anti-climate president and went on to say:
“If there is any person in America who cares about the climate crisis and has any doubt whatsoever about the importance of voting for Joe Biden this November, I want to emphasize to that person in as strong a way as I possibly can: This is not complicated,” Gore said. “This is not rocket science. This is not a close call.”
Gore and Biden appeared together on a virtual event this afternoon. You can watch the archived livestream here.
Jay Inslee also endorsed Biden today. As everyone knows his campaign focused on climate change. Monday the League of Conservation Voters gave Joe Biden the green thumbs up.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Gore said Biden had asked him to “engage in an ongoing dialogue” to “strengthen his climate platform considerably.” He declined to get into the specifics of his policy discussions with Biden or his campaign aides, but he said Biden already had the right focus and had expressed a willingness to make climate action his “top priority.”
The LA Times and Vice President Gore both acknowledge that Biden’s climate plan fall short of the aspirations of the GND. Gore feels that GND is a good plan but too aspirational to pass Congress as is. He said he feels it's more likely that change will come from a "series of actions” caused by an administration pushing this as a priority.
Biden’s plan calls for tax breaks, direct spending and more aggressive federal regulations. He’d start with reversing many actions of the Trump administration, which has rolled back a range of Obama administration efforts on energy and the environment. Biden would add an aggressive push on the world stage, using U.S. political and economic muscle to limit emissions from other nations, including China.
Gore and Biden worked together in the Senate in the 80s on climate change. Biden was the first to introduce a bill specifically on climate change. It died in the Senate, but the following year an amendment to a State Department funding bill he put forward was signed into law.