At the UN Cli­mate Action Sum­mit in New York last Sep­tem­ber, Gov­er­nor New­som point­ed out that: “Cal­i­for­nia is sig­nif­i­cant­ly out­per­form­ing the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca in GDP growth over a five-year peri­od because of our envi­ron­men­tal strate­gies. Five to one — five to one, the num­ber of clean ener­gy jobs in the State of Cal­i­for­nia ver­sus fos­sil fuel jobs.”

Daniel Kam­men, who found­ed the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Ener­gy Lab at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley adds that the state is ahead of sched­ule in meet­ing its ener­gy needs from renew­able sources, and is far along in build­ing a green econ­o­my. “Across the Unit­ed States right now, 35–40 per­cent of all invest­ments in green tech flow through Cal­i­for­nia,” he says.

Biden is fol­low­ing Cal­i­for­ni­a’s lead, and promis­es to tran­si­tion the US to a green econ­o­my. His plan calls for invest­ing $2 tril­lion over the next four years, set­ting the US on a path to achieve a clean ener­gy, net-zero emis­sions econ­o­my by 2050.

“The 2020 elec­tion in the Unit­ed States is absolute­ly crit­i­cal,” Kam­men says, “because we know on the cli­mate side that we have very few years left to get on an inno­v­a­tive green ener­gy path.”

The impor­tance of the com­ing poll is at least some­thing both sides can agree on. Radio host Win Car­pen­ter feels it is crit­i­cal that Trump wins. “Mr Trump is at one point of the gov­ern­ment and then we are at the oth­er end. He’s fight­ing from that side, we’re fight­ing from this side,” he says.

For­mer Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor Jer­ry Brown says the stakes in the 2020 elec­tion are cli­mate change, social tur­moil and the cur­rent pandemic.