NEWS 9/​18/​2020: KQED Newsroom, “Climate change and the economic outlook”September 20, 2020

To watch the inter­view and dis­cus­sion video, click here on the KQED website.

Fight­ing Cli­mate Change Amid Wild­fires, Extreme Weath­er and Pres­i­den­tial Denial

On Mon­day, dur­ing a trip to Cal­i­for­nia, Pres­i­dent Trump refused to acknowl­edge the role cli­mate change has played in gen­er­at­ing wild­fires that have burned more than 3 mil­lion acres and killed at least 26 peo­ple, includ­ing one fire­fight­er bat­tling the El Dora­do Fire east of Los Ange­les. Trump assert­ed that poor for­est man­age­ment was to blame and that the weath­er would get cool­er. But Trump’s denial of cli­mate change is at odds with pub­lic opin­ion. Accord­ing to the Yale Pro­gram on Cli­mate Change Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, more than 70% of Amer­i­cans believe that cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing, and near­ly 60% believe that it is most­ly due to human activ­i­ties. Mean­while, Cal­i­for­nia remains a leader on fight­ing green­house gas emis­sions, with more than 30% of its ener­gy com­ing from renew­ables like solar and wind, a fig­ure that is man­dat­ed to dou­ble in a decade. Last week, Gov. Gavin New­som said the state would accel­er­ate its cli­mate change strate­gies, includ­ing a goal to get to 100% car­bon-free elec­tric­i­ty by 2045.

Guests:

• Daniel Kam­men, pro­fes­sor of ener­gy and direc­tor, Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry, UC Berke­ley
• Jen­nifer Mar­lon, pro­fes­sor and research sci­en­tist, Yale Pro­gram on Cli­mate Change Communication