Harris will likely strengthen and deepen the existing Inflation Reduction Act with its generous subsidies to renewable energy, heavy industry and electric vehicles. Trump would probably want to cut on some of the subsidies, but is already grappling with the fact that a lot of the subsidies benefit Republican-controlled states where jobs and green investments are already flowing. Biden’s policies have helped to drive USD 493 billion of investment, out of which 90% to republican districts.
Both candidates have promised to help get energy costs down, promoting domestic oil and gas production. US fossil fuel production reached an all-time high in 2023. The politics and the reality of the transition are likely to collide and make it difficult for both candidates to deliver on all of the lofty promises. However, modelling from various US research groups shows that a Trump presidency will likely cause US emissions pathway to slow down and miss its current targets while a Harris presidency could speed it up and still make net-zero by 2050 a possibility.
Why is climate policy barely mentioned in a high stakes election? There are a few explanations for this. It seems climate is considered a difficult and divisive issue in both campaigns and is not considered to secure the needed votes. This can be also seen in the polls where voters say issues like economy, health care and abortion, crime and immigration are high on the list for both democrats and republicans (PEW 2024).
The detachment of the politics and reality of climate impacts on the ground is a cause of concern and increases both the physical and transition risks globally. The US is the second largest polluter and plays a critical role in the international climate policy circles and especially in relation to China. It is already falling behind its own climate pledge of reducing emissions by 50-52% by 2030. The US along with the rest of the world has experienced a record hot year and both the impacts of extreme weather events and the pace of the energy transition are already impacting the US economy and voters. In addition, a lot of geopolitics is tied with green technology and access to critical raw materials.
The stakes in this election are high. A Harris presidency would likely strengthen and drive decarbonisation of the US economy while a second Trump term would focus on rolling back and dismantling regulation and policies already in place. This would probably not fully stop the transition, but would considerably slow it down with ramifications to global climate policy as well. A lot depends also on what happens in the power balance in Congress as a sitting president can only do so much with executive action alone.
For now it seems that we will have to wait to see the outcome of the election and then see what will actually happen with the US climate policy in the next president’s term. The outcome will set the direction for the coming years not just for US voters, but globally as well.