Voters could elect a Trump administration that denies the climate crisis and whose policies are dictated by the fossil fuel industry.
Or a Kamala Harris administration that builds on climate-friendly policies, curbs the power of the fossil fuel industry, accelerates a clean energy revolution, adapts to climate change, and builds resilient communities and global solidarity.
The stakes grow with each passing day. On July 22, the world hit a record-high temperature. Meanwhile, scientists issued an alarming report documenting “a large decline in the land carbon sink in 2023.” As forests and flora degrade, they absorb less carbon dioxide, raising the prospect of a “doom cycle.”
The bad news is the November elections may be our last chance to get it right. “What happens in November, given America’s leading role in both creating and managing global climate chaos, will be our highest-leverage chance remaining to affect how high the temperature of our planet rises,” warns environmentalist Bill McKibbon.
The good news is that Americans broadly support addressing the climate crisis, including 69% who support the U.S. becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Kamala Harris’s historic candidacy and the anti-MAGA, pro-democracy, pro-environment coalition are rapidly coalescing around the Harris campaign, which they see as a real chance to enact policies the mass movements have long supported.
Leading environmental organizations endorsed Harris immediately: the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Action Fund, the NRDC Action Fund, the Sierra Club, Clean Energy for American Action (CE4A Action), and Evergreen.
“Harris grasps the urgency and scale of the challenge. She’ll advance the climate progress we’ve made at home and internationally. She’ll raise climate ambition to make sure we confront the climate crisis in a way that makes the country more inclusive, more economically competitive, and more energy secure,” the groups said in a joint statement.
“Vice President Harris is a proven champion and fierce advocate for climate action and clean energy and we are confident she will carry on the impressive legacy of the Biden-Harris Administration as President.”
“We are confident that she is ready to carry forward President Biden’s historic legacy and set a new high bar for climate ambition in America,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen. Such sentiments are important as fossil fuel corporations and other big business interests press her to diminish her support for tough measures to combat climate change.
This movement must mobilize every anti-MAGA, pro-environmental voter to defeat Trump, the convicted felon, serial rapist, pathological liar, fraudster, and climate denialist, backed by a fascist mass movement and extreme right-wing billionaires.
The fossil fuel industry ran the first Trump administration’s environmental policy. It was hostile to climate science, repealed over 100 environmental regulations, and withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement. The fossil fuel industry, chief authors of Project 2025, would also run the second Trump presidency.
At a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser with fossil fuel executives, Trump pledged to dismantle Biden’s climate policies and give the fossil fuel industry free reign over his administration’s energy and environmental agenda in exchange for donations of $1 billion to his campaign.
The Republican National Convention (RNC) fully embraced the fossil fuel industry agenda. Trump vowed to repeal the Biden administration’s climate agenda, what they called the “Green New Scam,” and withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement again.
“We will drill baby drill,” Trump declared, and the fossil fuel industry, falsely claiming that freed from environmental regulations the industry will spur massive economic growth and job creation. “We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far. We are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy,” declared Trump.
Of course, these are lies. Studies show job loss in Ohio and Pennsylvania counties where most natural gas fracking, which Harris opposes, occurs. Solar installation is the fastest-growing job sector.
Project 2025, authored by the Heritage Foundation and a network of hundreds of extreme right-wing organizations backed by fascist billionaires, will guide Trump’s policies. This governing blueprint eliminates democratic rights, social safety net programs, and environmental protections.
The fossil fuel industry is a main backer of Project 2025, which centers on ramping up coal mining, natural gas extraction, and fracking. Project 2025 guts the regulatory state and consumer and environmental protections. Fifty thousand public servants, including climate and environmental scientists, will be fired and replaced with pro-fossil fuel henchmen.
Eliminates restrictions on polluters
According to Mother Jones, the plan eliminates federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands, ends federal investments in renewable energy technologies and transition, and eases restrictions on new fossil fuel projects such as power plants.
Project 2025 prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating pollution and enforcing the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. All programs that link air and water pollution to public health will end.
Sasha Abramsky wrote that the words “climate crisis” and “all climate change goals from government services, ranging from how cities are zoned to what materials are used in public construction projects,” will be removed from government websites.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Weather Service, which gather scientific data on climate change, will be dismantled! Imagine having no warning whatsoever when a tornado hits your home or tears apart your child’s school.
The corrupt MAGA-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, including three justices appointed by Trump, is compounding the environmental crisis. The Federalist Society, one of the groups linked to Project 2025, vetted the justices with the specific purpose of banning abortion and rolling back LGBTQ rights and environmental and consumer protections.
The Supreme Court MAGA court majority is feverishly conducting a Constitutional coup. This past term, they handed down the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling, severely undermining federal agencies’ ability to limit pollution. The court overturned the “Chevron deference,” a forty-year-old ruling deferring federal agencies’ expertise in enforcing statutes.
With the ruling, MAGA justices unconstitutionally expanded their power to include policymaking. Justices ignorant of science, climate crisis, and public health and vetted by right-wing fossil fuel corporations will determine regulations. Trump will continue stocking the courts with right-wing vetted appointees to lock in Christian Nationalist and plutocratic rule and the Project 2025 agenda.
Environmental activists and organizations quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and are alerting the public to Project 2025. Climate action can also inspire young voters, many of whom President Biden turned off despite the administration’s forward climate policies. After Biden’s announcement to withdraw, the Sunrise Movement held an emergency call and, though not endorsing Harris, began planning to ramp up youth and environmental voter engagement.
Harris is campaigning to protect, implement, and expand the Biden-Harris administration’s climate policies and appoint pro-reproductive rights and pro-environment justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. She will need Democratic Congressional majorities to accomplish her environmental agenda, including a Democratic U.S. Senate majority large enough to eliminate the filibuster.
Passed significant climate legislation
The administration and congressional Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the most significant climate-related investment in U.S. history. However, enormous pressure from the fossil fuel industry, total GOP obstruction, narrow Democratic congressional majorities, and recalcitrant senators like Sen. Joe Manchin, I-WVa, limited its scope and scale.
The heart of the IRA is investments and incentives spurring clean energy manufacturing and installation, such as solar and wind power, and the market for electric vehicles and home appliances.
In addition, the administration negotiated the Kigali Amendment on reducing HFCs, implemented plans to reduce methane emissions, expanded forest protection, and put limits on offshore drilling while expanding offshore expansion of wind power.
However, the Biden administration also adopted policies that angered environmentalists, such as expanded permitting for offshore drilling and approval of the Willow Project on Alaska’s North Slope. The fossil fuel industry’s obstruction of pro-environment plans may prevent reaching the administration’s emission reduction targets by 2030.
“Vice President Harris has been integral to the Biden administration’s most important climate accomplishments and has a long track record as an impactful climate champion,” said Evergreen Action, the climate-oriented political group.
Harris has been a champion of environmental justice since her days as California Attorney General when she created one of the first state environmental justice units. Her office went after corporations that were dumping pollution in working-class and people of color communities.
As a U.S. Senator, Harris promoted climate equity, supported the Green New Deal, and called for eliminating the Senate filibuster to pass it. During her brief run for president in 2020, she issued an ambitious $10 trillion plan to radically address the climate crisis.
Harris argued that $20 billion from the EPA should be included in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to aid marginalized communities facing climate impacts.
“I think of the manufacturing side, the jobs, the public health and education. There’s so much about the intersection of the economy and public health that affects the most vulnerable of our population,” she told Leah Stokes.
“One thing I’m excited about is EVs, particularly electric school buses. Twenty-five million children go to school on those diesel fuel buses and millions of drivers. Both workers and students are inhaling that bad air.”
However, beyond implementing the IRA, Harris still needs to flesh out a full environmental agenda to address the planetary emergency and radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A bolder agenda could further inspire broader support for a rapidly expanding movement to win a pro-environment president and Congress in November.
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