“We have never seen the kind of cronyism and symbiotic relationship with fossil fuel companies that we have during the Trump administration,”
says Leah Stokes, a UC Santa Barbara environmental scientist who once had her doubts about Joe Biden. Now she says, “I do feel like Joe Biden has really developed into a climate leader.”
Stokes believes that the Democratic primary campaigns helped Biden shape a broader understanding. “We face four interrelated crises right now. The economic crisis … COVID, racial injustice and the climate crisis.”
She’s confident that Biden will “take on climate change at the scale that's necessary.” That includes addressing its impact on people living in poverty and communities of color. “He has been iterating his climate ideas over the course of this … two-year campaign, and he has landed at a place that really squares with the same ideas as the Green New Deal.”