Matti Kahra

24-10-2024 08:13

Why is climate policy barely mentioned in a high stakes election?

Matti Kahra, Senior Climate Specialist.

The US presidential election is two weeks away, and globally all eyes are turning to watch as the race enters its final stretch. The latest polls show it will be an intensive campaign to the end. Overall, Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are essentially tied on average in national polls. The race remains very close in the seven key battleground states that will likely determine who comes out on top. (New York times poll tracker 2024).

There has been a lot of debate around the usual big issues in everyday politics: economy, health care,  abortion and immigration. Climate policy has barely been mentioned on the campaign trail. Neither candidate has released a comprehensive policy plan on how US climate and energy policy would look like during their presidency. 

Putting together both written and oral statements from the candidates and their campaigns we can, however, outline the building blocks and related GHG emission outlooks for how a Harris or Trump presidency would likely turn out. 

On and off with the climate policies

199720012016201720212024
Bill ClintonGeorge W. BushBarack ObamaDonald TrumpJoe Biden?
Signed the 
Kyoto protocol
Wouldn't implement 
the Kyoto protocol
Entered the Paris
Agreement
Withdrew from the 
Paris Agreement
Re-entered the
Paris Agreement
?

In the Harris campaign, climate has been mentioned only in passing without any specifics on the plan forward. Most of the questions have been around US oil and gas production which has reached record highs during the Biden presidency. Harris has stated that she will not ban fracking which means that even under her presidency there would be support for all types of domestic energy production, including fossil fuels. What is most striking perhaps is that the landmark US climate policy, 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which Harris was key in getting passed, has been reduced to a sidenote. This decision seems mostly to be strategic and an effort to focus on policy issues to help get votes. A Harris presidency would likely build on the existing IRA provisions and strengthen both domestic and international climate policy. 

In the Trump campaign both the science and need for climate policy have been questioned repeatedly. Trump has called IRA and many of the existing policies a “green new scam”. Campaign officials and advisors seem to hint that Trump would in fact roll back much of the existing regulation and facilitate an increase in the production of fossil fuels. Electric vehicle subsidies, power plants and methane pollution limits are assessed to be especially vulnerable under a Trump presidency. The same approach would likely be taken in an international climate policy and make constructive cooperation with China and other major polluters more difficult. 

Climate policy has barely been mentioned on the campaign trail. 

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. 

Written by

Name:
Matti Kahra
Title:
Senior Climate Specialist at Nordea Group Sustainability team.
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