On 3 November, US voters will decide whether to keep Donald Trump in the White House for another four years or replace him with Joe Biden.
The result will have a significant bearing on US climate and energy policy, as well as the chances of international warming targets being met.
It will be particularly stark given the Republican incumbent’s climate scepticism and his withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, a decision that is formally set to come into effect the day after the election.
His Democratic challenger has pledged to remain part of the agreement and begin a “clean energy revolution” in the US to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
In the table above, Carbon Brief has drawn together official documents, recent speeches and statements made in the media by each presidential candidate, their affiliated party and their vice presidential pick.
Biden has released wide-ranging climate and energy plans that focus heavily on “environmental justice” for climate-vulnerable communities and fossil-fuel workers affected by his “revolution”.
His running mate, Kamala Harris, has expressed strong views on climate action and is a prominent supporter of the Green New Deal.
The Democrats have also laid out their party lines in a “platform”, the US equivalent of a manifesto.
By contrast, there have been no formal statements regarding Trump’s energy and climate policies, beyond a bullet-pointed list of second-term agenda items including a commitment to continue the “deregulatory agenda for energy independence”.
However, this does not mean the president is overlooking this topic entirely. His campaigning has included plenty of rhetoric about the success of the US oil-and-gas sector, as well as criticism of his opponent’s supposed shortcomings.
Vice president Mike Pence also has a history of climate scepticism and has used his position to trumpet the administration’s actions to support the fossil-fuel economy.
In an unconventional move, the Republicans have opted not to produce a new platform for 2020, but to simply reuse their platform from 2016, written before Trump became president.
Therefore, it includes references to the policies of his predecessor, Barack Obama, and does not address recent events.
There have been some notable changes in rhetoric since the last election, which Carbon Brief also covered.
For example, Biden, who was not initially regarded as the most progressive Democratic candidate on climate change, has embraced an agenda that is seen as far more ambitious than Hillary Clinton’s 2016 platform.
Trump has claimed victories in the energy sector as part of his “war on red tape”, but commentators have noted that, while coal was central to his first presidential bid, the struggling industry is no longer a focus in his speeches.
In the build up to the election, the table above will be updated as the candidates reveal more about their positions on key topics.
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