The second debate among Democratic Party presidential candidates was more chippy. With more frontrunners involved, it was always likely they would look to score points off one another, highlighting their ability to fight Trump rather than, as happened last night, establishing policy credentials.

There were two ‘winners’. California Senator Kamala Harris impressed throughout. She also stumped former Vice President Joe Biden over the historically sensitive racial issue of bussing. The second was Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. His performance will widen his appeal beyond college students and university-educated Democrats.

The losers were many. One relevant example for engineering was entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Many in technology hoped he would bring expertise in the sector to the campaign. He was barely heard. Yang now looks likely to dropout soon.

The main disappointments though befell higher profile players. Biden never recovered from Harris’s criticism despite starting confidently. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was unusually low-key. Both fight on but need to rediscover their mojos.

Our concern, though, is how Democrat policy is evolving through these primaries with regard to engineering. China and taxation were prominent themes last night; here they gave way to climate change (alongside more personal attacks on President Donald Trump).

The party’s leadership has long engaged with climate change, though a charge in the past is that it has downplayed the issue during elections. It feared losing voters in Trump states seen as sceptics.

On the evidence of this debate, that is no longer the case. Most candidates cited climate change as a major threat, even an existential one. You can agree or disagree about that, but everyone should recognise that such rhetoric is unusual in mainstream US politics.

What’s changed – and how are the Democrats tackling the issue? We only have some clues right now, but they are good ones.

The drivers behind some of the change are obvious. Reversing Trump’s repudiation of the Paris agreement sits close to the top of the party’s agenda for political and environmental reasons.

Achieving that is acutely personal for Biden, given his role in fostering the original deal. Not surprisingly, it made for one of his stronger moments during the debate.

“I would immediately insist that we, in fact, build 500,000 recharging stations throughout the United States of America, working with governors, mayors and others, so that we can go to a full electric-vehicle future by the year 2030,” he said.

“I would make sure that we invested $400m in new science and technology, to be the exporter not only of the green economy, but an economy that can create millions of jobs.

“And I would immediately join the Paris Climate Accord. I would up the ante in that accord, which it calls for, because we make up 15 per cent of the problem; 85 per cent of the world makes up the rest. And so we have to have someone who knows how to corral the rest of the world, bring them together and get something done.”

However, several eloquent contributions, including from Harris and Buttigieg, derived from experiences at home. This is now about their electorates too.

As a result of seeing the horrific results of Californian wildfires last year, Harris said: “I don’t even call it climate change. It’s a climate crisis. It represents an existential threat to us as a species. And the fact that we have a President of the United States who has embraced science fiction over science fact will be to our collective peril,” she said.

Buttigieg’s comments, and also those from candidates such as former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, gave more insight into the deeper policy debate because both come from middle-American bread-basket states.

“This isn’t theoretical for us in South Bend, either,” Buttigieg said. “Parts of California are on fire. Right here in Florida, they’re talking about sea-level rise. Well in Indiana, I had to activate the emergency operations centre of our city twice in less than two years. The first time was a thousand-year flood and the next time was a five-hundred-year flood.

“This is not just happening on the Arctic ice caps; this is happening in the middle of the country. And we’ve got to be dramatically more aggressive moving forward.”

Even as recently as 2018’s mid-term elections, the national Democratic platform allocated climate change a comparatively low priority. The party’s thinking has since shifted as it sees farmers and others in rural working-class constituencies increasingly linking the subject to a range of impacts. These stretch from declining crop yields to severe local destruction. Moreover, this group is then also seen as potential swing voters because the agricultural economy is suffering from the trade tariffs on China (for example, China dominates US soybean exports).

Although not invited to speak in detail on climate change during the debate, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet’s stump speech contains the observation that, “I spent the whole summer meeting with farmers and ranchers in places where I’ll never get 30 per cent of the vote in Colorado, but who are deeply worried about being able to pass their farms or ranches along to their children or grandchildren because they have no water because of the droughts”.

So, it looks safe to count on something – probably something genuinely extensive – on climate change should the eventual Democratic nominee become President. But for all the strong language, it is not entirely clear how that policy will work. It is here that Hickenlooper’s position may become increasingly interesting.

First, he’s a scientist, a geologist who has worked in the energy sector. Second, he’s done real stuff about climate change. Five years ago, he introduced regulations to cut state methane emissions as Colorado governor. As a candidate, he backs international aid to support other countries’ work on the Paris agreement, a carbon tax, a tripling of the R&D budget for the ARPA-E federal energy research agency, and large-scale national investment in a clean-energy infrastructure.

But Hickenlooper does not support the Green New Deal. Additionally, where many Democratic candidates see climate change in the context of a battle against big energy companies and corporate interests, he argues they must be part of the solution.

“I think we’ve got to recognise that only by bringing people together, businesses, nonprofits – and we can’t demonise every business… We’ve got to bring them together to be part of this thing. Because ultimately, if we’re not able to do that we will be doomed to failure,” he said during the debate.

This thinking represents a more conservative view within Democratic politics. But in being able to cite cooperation with energy suppliers over his state’s methane law, Hickenlooper has evidence that at least some types of cooperation are possible.

He is an outsider for the nomination, though is being mentioned as a potential Cabinet Energy Secretary in a Democratic administration. Given the more aggressive positions of the other candidates, that suggests the party still sees a need to further harmonise what is a narrower yet still varying range of views.

Climate change policy will develop in nuance and content as the primaries continue. It may even become the party’s defining campaign theme next year. Already among Democrats themselves, there are calls for a candidates’ debate specifically on climate change – though preferably once their number is smaller. Then the issue can be explored and explained in more detail than the current field allows, and the remaining contenders’ should have crystallised further.

If you want to dive deeper into last night’s debate, a full transcript is available here.

The second debate among Democratic Party presidential candidates was more chippy. With more frontrunners involved, it was always likely they would look to score points off one another, highlighting their ability to fight Trump rather than, as happened last night, establishing policy credentials.

There were two ‘winners’. California Senator Kamala Harris impressed throughout. She also stumped former Vice President Joe Biden over the historically sensitive racial issue of bussing. The second was Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. His performance will widen his appeal beyond college students and university-educated Democrats.

The losers were many. One relevant example for engineering was entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Many in technology hoped he would bring expertise in the sector to the campaign. He was barely heard. Yang now looks likely to dropout soon.

The main disappointments though befell higher profile players. Biden never recovered from Harris’s criticism despite starting confidently. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was unusually low-key. Both fight on but need to rediscover their mojos.

Our concern, though, is how Democrat policy is evolving through these primaries with regard to engineering. China and taxation were prominent themes last night; here they gave way to climate change (alongside more personal attacks on President Donald Trump).

The party’s leadership has long engaged with climate change, though a charge in the past is that it has downplayed the issue during elections. It feared losing voters in Trump states seen as sceptics.

On the evidence of this debate, that is no longer the case. Most candidates cited climate change as a major threat, even an existential one. You can agree or disagree about that, but everyone should recognise that such rhetoric is unusual in mainstream US politics.

What’s changed – and how are the Democrats tackling the issue? We only have some clues right now, but they are good ones.

The drivers behind some of the change are obvious. Reversing Trump’s repudiation of the Paris agreement sits close to the top of the party’s agenda for political and environmental reasons.

Achieving that is acutely personal for Biden, given his role in fostering the original deal. Not surprisingly, it made for one of his stronger moments during the debate.

“I would immediately insist that we, in fact, build 500,000 recharging stations throughout the United States of America, working with governors, mayors and others, so that we can go to a full electric-vehicle future by the year 2030,” he said.

“I would make sure that we invested $400m in new science and technology, to be the exporter not only of the green economy, but an economy that can create millions of jobs.

“And I would immediately join the Paris Climate Accord. I would up the ante in that accord, which it calls for, because we make up 15 per cent of the problem; 85 per cent of the world makes up the rest. And so we have to have someone who knows how to corral the rest of the world, bring them together and get something done.”

However, several eloquent contributions, including from Harris and Buttigieg, derived from experiences at home. This is now about their electorates too.

As a result of seeing the horrific results of Californian wildfires last year, Harris said: “I don’t even call it climate change. It’s a climate crisis. It represents an existential threat to us as a species. And the fact that we have a President of the United States who has embraced science fiction over science fact will be to our collective peril,” she said.

Buttigieg’s comments, and also those from candidates such as former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, gave more insight into the deeper policy debate because both come from middle-American bread-basket states.

“This isn’t theoretical for us in South Bend, either,” Buttigieg said. “Parts of California are on fire. Right here in Florida, they’re talking about sea-level rise. Well in Indiana, I had to activate the emergency operations centre of our city twice in less than two years. The first time was a thousand-year flood and the next time was a five-hundred-year flood.

“This is not just happening on the Arctic ice caps; this is happening in the middle of the country. And we’ve got to be dramatically more aggressive moving forward.”

Even as recently as 2018’s mid-term elections, the national Democratic platform allocated climate change a comparatively low priority. The party’s thinking has since shifted as it sees farmers and others in rural working-class constituencies increasingly linking the subject to a range of impacts. These stretch from declining crop yields to severe local destruction. Moreover, this group is then also seen as potential swing voters because the agricultural economy is suffering from the trade tariffs on China (for example, China dominates US soybean exports).

Although not invited to speak in detail on climate change during the debate, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet’s stump speech contains the observation that, “I spent the whole summer meeting with farmers and ranchers in places where I’ll never get 30 per cent of the vote in Colorado, but who are deeply worried about being able to pass their farms or ranches along to their children or grandchildren because they have no water because of the droughts”.

So, it looks safe to count on something – probably something genuinely extensive – on climate change should the eventual Democratic nominee become President. But for all the strong language, it is not entirely clear how that policy will work. It is here that Hickenlooper’s position may become increasingly interesting.

First, he’s a scientist, a geologist who has worked in the energy sector. Second, he’s done real stuff about climate change. Five years ago, he introduced regulations to cut state methane emissions as Colorado governor. As a candidate, he backs international aid to support other countries’ work on the Paris agreement, a carbon tax, a tripling of the R&D budget for the ARPA-E federal energy research agency, and large-scale national investment in a clean-energy infrastructure.

But Hickenlooper does not support the Green New Deal. Additionally, where many Democratic candidates see climate change in the context of a battle against big energy companies and corporate interests, he argues they must be part of the solution.

“I think we’ve got to recognise that only by bringing people together, businesses, nonprofits – and we can’t demonise every business… We’ve got to bring them together to be part of this thing. Because ultimately, if we’re not able to do that we will be doomed to failure,” he said during the debate.

This thinking represents a more conservative view within Democratic politics. But in being able to cite cooperation with energy suppliers over his state’s methane law, Hickenlooper has evidence that at least some types of cooperation are possible.

He is an outsider for the nomination, though is being mentioned as a potential Cabinet Energy Secretary in a Democratic administration. Given the more aggressive positions of the other candidates, that suggests the party still sees a need to further harmonise what is a narrower yet still varying range of views.

Climate change policy will develop in nuance and content as the primaries continue. It may even become the party’s defining campaign theme next year. Already among Democrats themselves, there are calls for a candidates’ debate specifically on climate change – though preferably once their number is smaller. Then the issue can be explored and explained in more detail than the current field allows, and the remaining contenders’ should have crystallised further.

If you want to dive deeper into last night’s debate, a full transcript is available here.